Star Wars: The Trouble With Palpatine
by Rhysati Ynr
Summary: Keisha and Kai Darklighter barely managed to escape the Jedi Temple attack with their lives. And now they are on the run from the very people that fought alongside them. Has the universe gone crazy? Cameos from ObiWan, Vader and Palpatine!
1. Chapter 1

Star Wars

The Trouble With Palpatine

Written by Rachel E Hayler

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

_I felt it. The thundering tremors reverberated through the cavernous, peacefully curving walls of the halls throughout the Jedi Temple. Inquisitive and fearful beings rushed to the arched windows, peering out into the Coruscant twilight sky for the origin of the pounding drone growing steadily more imposing and increasing in volume. _

_A Padawan yanked at the hem of his master's Jedi tunic, his eyes wide as he hissed, "Master, those clones are in attack formation. What are we going to do?"_

_The boy's master had turned a grim smile towards his apprentice, or as much of a smile as was possible for a Rodian, "We are going to protect the Temple at all costs, Padawan. We cannot allow the Temple to be over-taken on destroyed." _

_Although there had been an attempt to keep the comment muted and private, everyone in the vicinity overheard it. It was just the kind of forbidding confidence booster that was needed. An almighty surge of light-side energy streamed through me, and a more confident smile blossomed on my face. The situation was dire, but the Temple was alive with the pure strength of the Force. It was with us, it was our ally. We were united, and we could take on anything that threatened our way of life. No amount of clone troopers could compare to the combined power of our wills and courage._

_Oh, how wrong I had been._

_Within mere minutes, the Temple had been over-run. Everywhere I looked I caught the flash of gleaming white plastoid armour that glowed menacingly in the evening light. My lightsaber sprang into my grip a second before the clone troopers arrived around the corner, my perceptions alert as fire hailed in on my position. My hissing, sapphire blade whistled through the air with the honed precision of years of military combat, trimming down the lines of the enemy before me. It was strange how my mind began to work as I tried futilely to defend myself. Due to my fondness of technology, I had perfected the art of turning my mind into a sort of heat sensing device, or something that worked in a similar principal. Immediate threats were highlighted in red, the lesser intimidates outlined in darkening colours of the spectrum._

_This technique had proved to be excellent in past battles, allowing me to cause maximum damage to my opponents with minimum or little damage sustained to myself and my allies. Unfortunately, the sheer scale of the enemy was far greater than anything I had ever experienced._

_Drawing deeper upon the Force, I drew my previously sweeping blows to be closer together and sharper, allowing me room to deflect fire quicker and more accurately than before at any clones that dared to take a shot at me. Of course, that was a lot of clones. Eventually, I developed a technique where I deflected laser bolts into the chest armour of one clone, knocking him back and thus taking him out of the battle momentarily, but angling the blast just enough so that it careened off of the shining breastplate at a wild angle and struck another clone in an unprotected joint. With the help of the other Jedi in the archaic hallway, that lead to the bridge walkway suspended high above another cavernous passage, we drove the clone ranks back to a position that made us feel more comfortable. This did not last long; however._

_I heard the unmistakable snap-swoosh of lightsabers clashing, and my danger sense piqued. Jedi taking on Jedi? What were the odds?! Fortunately, I had no care for odds in any shape or form. However, a death-defiant scream punctured my hearing, and my opinion quickly changed._

_Ahead, the Jedi master and apprentice who had powered confidence into us leapt into a unified front, their cobalt and emerald blades bursting into motion against a hooded figure who emerged from the end of the corridor. The man's lightsaber – I presumed he was male – counter-attacked with an animal ferocity that clearly took the two Jedi by surprise. Within moments, the young apprentice had been slain; his head being ripped clear of his shoulders._

_The boy's death left a deep rift in the Force, which rapidly erupted into grief and terror as the boy's Rodian master pounced at her apprentice's murderer with a hate filled passion that she clearly had no hope of sustaining or controlling. Her anger fuelled onslaught was no match for the man, and she collapsed to the floor…in two halves. My gaze dropped to her fallen body pieces, and then rose again as the man began to advance towards me. His features were hard to distinguish, but the closer he closed the gap between us he became shockingly more recognisable._

"_Skywalker?" I barely registered exclaiming, but before I had time to react his blade was upon me, punishing my defences with such strength that at first I was over-whelmed._

_He began to drive me towards the suspended walkway, and I had to desperately comprehend his attacks. Strong, powerful and crippling, using his upper body strength to pommel through my guard and end my life quicker than I could say my own name. I swallowed hard and drummed a sense of peace into my mind, allowing it to flow through me as I concentrated. Djem so. That was his form!_

_Speed would be the only thing that could save me. _

_My confidence beamed and I could my entire being laughing assertively as I dropped into a crouch and rolled to the side as Skywalker chopped his blazing blade down my right flank. I rose to my feet a second later, hammering attacks in a random series of patterns, not thinking, at his limbs. I drove him towards the edge of the bridgeway, our lightsabers clashing against one another as we dangled precariously near the brink. With my sapphire blade trapping his from cutting me neatly in two, our struggle became futile as we poured our energy into trying to send one another plunging towards the cold stone floor far below._

_With an eruption of dark-side energy that I had not been expecting, Skywalker knocked my blade out of my hand and sent it spiralling to the cacophony of the battle below._

Even though I was weaponless, my Corellian ego bubbled to the surface of me, and I fixed him with huge grin, "You know, Skywalker, for the hero with no fear, the fear I sense in you now would put that title to shame."

_The traitor glared at me, his eyes glowing molten red, "There is no fear in me!"_

"_As sure there is sand on Tatooine," I replied simply, my smile about as bright as the twin suns above that planet._

_I was ready when he prepared to strike me, snapping out a hand so that I caught his attacking arm in an iron grip. We wrestled tirelessly, Skywalker's blade mere millimetres from my face. My arm muscles began to scream as the effort became almost unbearable, but I held on. I would not become one of his victims. I could only hope that the feeling within me that I was not going to die would stay with me._

_Suddenly, my legs gave way beneath me. I had no idea how it happened, but a giant spasm in my right thigh caused me to sink to my knees before the merciless, blazing fire of his hissing sapphire blade. The hum of his lightsaber was the only noise that reached my ears, drowning out the sounds of firing blasters and ear-piercing death-defying screams. The buzzing had seemed to intensify; the only blast that punctuated the constant din was the ferocious beating of my heart. My mind whirled as I risked a look over my shoulder, calculating the drop that I would have to take if I dropped from the walkway to the hall floor below. The pain that I would have to endure would be excruciating but might be the only chance that I had of making it out alive._

_I looked up into Skywalker's azure eyes, and forced my brilliant smile to remain on my face and hide any feeling of uneasiness that was lurking and churning in my guts. "You may have the power of the Force behind you, Kid, but no one can out-smart a Corellian!"_

_With that, I shoved out at the fallen Jedi's legs, knocking him backwards as I leapt to my feet, coiling the Force around me like a spring and dropped down from the edge of the walkway. The wind whipped me to the side as I fell, pitching me away from my desired landing place. Well, not the wind; a Force shove! I could sense Skywalker smirking as I collided with a battalion of clone troopers when I finally smacked against the cold, stone ground, causing even more damage to my battered body._

_I skidded across the floor, hearing the shattering sound of my bones splintering inside my body. I finally slowed to a painful halt after bashing into the leg armour of another trooper as I continued to roll, then landed hard on my back. My vision blackened instantly as I slipped into a void of cold darkness, lacking life and consciousness…._

A soft groan was the thing that snapped me back to the real world. I rubbed the sleep dust from my eyes as I pushed myself into a better, more upright position in the piloting chair. I was hardly surprised that the Force has disturbed me in my sleep once again; especially when it placed a vision in my head of one of the various deaths that I could have suffered, if events had turned out differently. The past few hours had been full of them, the endless tossing and turning where I was constantly waking up in a cold sweat. Not surprisingly, the attack on the Jedi Temple back on Coruscant had only occurred a short while ago.

"Kai?" The call punctured my contemplative silence, but filled me with a burst of furious, relentless relief.

I sprang from my chair and broke into a jog, storming towards the ship's small main cabin. On our mad dash from Coruscant, we had stolen a Republic shuttle, slaughtering all of the clone troopers on board – like the animals that they had become – and jetting away before the monstrosities had had a chance to chase us. Fortunately, my brother-in-law's astromech droid, R2-11-TDE had somehow worked its way on board and managed to disable the tracking devices that may have been installed within the ship's internal workings.

I suppressed a shudder that worked its way into my shoulders at the thought of my brother-in-law as I entered the cabin, calling gently as I went, "Keisha?"

Sitting upright on the bunk in the centre of the room my wife, Jedi Knight Keisha Farlander looked dazedly at the bacta drip in her arm, then gazed across at me, "How long have I been asleep?"

I smiled softly at her and crossed the floor so that I was at her bedside, then sat down on the edge of it and leant down to kiss her on the forehead. "Far too long."

She gripped the collar of my flight suit and drew me closer to her for an intense, passionate kiss that lasted for several long, desperate minutes. She pulled away a moment afterwards and her voice came out as a faint whisper, "I kept having dreams…nightmares about-"

I hushed her before she could say the name. "D…don't think about it. We need to stay strong."

Her brown eyes welled up with a liquid pain, but she forced back any tears that threatened to over-whelm her. "You're right, I know." She flashed me a brave smile. "Where are we headed?"

"Tatooine," I answered instantly, which drew a confused yet slightly curious expression from her, so I elaborated in a tone that was far more angry and cold than I had been intending, "I figured that it would be one of the only planets that Skywalker won't set his blast forsaken boots on."

My wife contemplated it and then nodded a second later, "Good idea. Though I wouldn't mind a run in with that hut'uun right now."

I sighed, somehow unable to look into her defiant gaze as I sunk down on my back onto the bunk beside her. How could I reply to that? Her anger and grief ran deeper than I could even begin to contemplate or probably never understand, though on a human level rightfully so. After all, my brother-in-laws death had been a shock to the both of us. A lengthy lightsaber battle had occurred between him and Skywalker, a sparring fight that left a trail of destruction behind them. My brother-in-laws power had reeked havoc upon Skywalkers defences to the point of submission, where the fallen Jedi had slumped against the burnt out innards of a Jedi Starfighter.

I don't know what had compelled me to do it but before Keisha's brother could strike a killing blow, I had pounced forwards, preventing him from killing Skywalker. Part of me, the Corellian within me – that is, kept reminding my mind that I had done it so that he would not have had the vengeance for how that man had injured my wife; let alone the other Jedi he had murdered. Deep down though, I knew that I had done it out of camaraderie for the younger man. He had been a nerf herder, for sure, but I didn't want to see him get hurt or worse turn over to the one thing that we had been trying to destroy for so many years. Besides, Keisha would have killed me if I stood idly by while something happened to her younger brother.

Unfortunately, he didn't see it my way and turned on me with a rage that I was surprised at. It wasn't long before my consciousness failed me and I apparently dropped down to the floor beside my wife, who was presumed to be dead, just as she miraculously awoke.

Next thing I knew, the ceiling above the grand main hanger began to crumble, perhaps due to the immense power of the Force that was coursing through the walls of the cavernous room. My brother-in-law held up as much of the tumbling rocks as possible whilst my wife, her apprentice, Skywalker and I made a desperate dash for the exit.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, my last memory of the whole event being the young mans final words, "Look after her, Kai, if you die, I'll kill you."

And now, here we were, on the run from an unknown enemy with no knowledge of what had happened to make the clones revolt against us back at the Temple on Coruscant.

I blanked out my thoughts at that point. I needed my mind to be clear if we were going to survive this purgery. I managed to beam a smile up at her, "Not if Lena or I got there first."

My wife gasped suddenly. "Oh blazes! Lena! What happened to her?"

I smiled softly, keeping my tone calm though I knew there was a scolding brewing deep within her brown eyes, "She said that she wanted to be on her own for a while, so she took the _Breeze_ and went home to Alderaan."

"And you just let her go, by herself?" She asked, more of a flabbergasted statement than an actual question that demanded an answer.

I gave her one anyway as I raised my hands defensively and spoke in a sheepish tone, "It was her decision. Besides, we both decided that it would be wise if we all separated."

Keisha's head drooped, so I propped myself up on one elbow and lifted her chin up so that her gaze was once again level with mine. "She'll be alright, Keisha. Trust me."

She nodded. "You're right, of course. I know it."

I smiled broadly. "Good, then I'll head back to the cock-pit and check on Tee-Dee's progress with the ship's transponder codes."

She shook her head, once again drawing me tantalizingly close before I could rise from the bunk and kissing me for another long, passionate moment, and then whispered in my ear, "Or you could check on that a bit later?"

My smile crept up into my usual, lop-sided and typically Corellian smirk, "I could do that."

"Good." Was all she said, and suddenly the room began to grow very warm…


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Corellian Charm

Burning brightly in our forward viewport, the twin suns of Tatoo one and two masked the orange dust ball of the planet Tatooine. Tee-Dee's frustrated whistles broke the hissing of the white noise from the static discharge of the suns, as it played havoc with the ship's comms systems. I rubbed my fingers against my temples, trying to find a sense of quiet within the baffle of noises as Keisha moved over to the comms-control, trying to reduce the volume of the speakers.

"Just land in Anchorhead, Tee-Dee. I don't care if we haven't been giving landing permission yet. Just do it."

The little Artoo unit tootled a slightly defiant yet affirmative blatt, though he spurted a cautionary set of squeals at me a second later.

"If there are any clones down there, Tee-Dee, which I highly doubt, then we will deal with them when we get down there ourselves," I grumbled back, receiving a sympathetic smile from my wife.

Soon, we were plunging through the world's atmosphere, our trail of entry flames burning almost as brightly as the rippling mirage of the Great Chott. The giant desert plain stretched for kilometres upon kilometres past the small town of Anchorhead and its endless sands had become a natural mirror against the twins' rays, bouncing back brilliant light into space that could blind the sensors upon all kinds of ships. Hopefully, we could use this to our advantage. The anti-glare tinting upon our ships forward viewport did little to tame the brightness springing up off of the reflective metal of our ship's nose.

I got up from the piloting chair and crouched down at Tee-Dee's side. "Land just on the outskirts of the city. Then, delete all of the records from the ship's log up until this point. We don't want the clones to know where this ship came from."

The droid warbled an acknowledgement of the order as the ship did a flyby of the small town. As far as I could see, Anchorhead was bustling with people milling up and down the streets, meandering around the market stalls. My gaze swept across them all, feeding on every detail of every individual until, suddenly, my stare halted abruptly. I had recognised someone. Blast it!

I leapt to my feet from my crouched position next to the astromech droid, gripping Keisha by the wrist and dragging her towards the viewport beside me as she yelped in surprise, "Did you see him?"

She looked at me in confusion, a similar expression that someone might use on a person they believed to be delusional from heat stroke – and we had not even landed down on the planet yet. Eventually of a few long seconds of looking at me she began to track my line of sight as she asked, "Who? I don't see anyone familiar."

"The man in the sand cloak with his hood up!" I replied excitedly. "It's Master Kenobi!"

She squinted at the man's back, and then shook her head. "How can you be certain? You can't see his face."

I gave her a loving smile and kissed her quickly, my relief almost taking over my movements. "A little thing called the Force, Sweetheart."

I dropped down beside Tee-Dee once more, indicating the nearest, dome-shaped space port. "Set her down in there, Tee-Dee. We need to meet with Master Kenobi before he leaves!"

Tee-Dee seemed to be almost as excited and bright as I was, his cheery, affirmative bleep confirming the order as our ship did one more spinning sweep across the city and then dropped down easily into the sunken space port.

Once we were safely within the spaceports bland, rounded walls, I rose to my feet again as I waved Keisha towards the ships cabin. "Collect all of our things. We need to abandon the ship."

My wife nodded and ventured down the ships corridor as I gently tapped the astromech droid on its domed, bottle-green head. "Did you manage to change the ships transponder codes and alter the log?"

The droid's responding blatt was so sharp that I instinctively removed my hand in shock. "Alright…alright. I know you don't need reminding."

Tee-Dee sent another burst of static at me. "And I know it would have been quicker to accomplish if I had helped, but Keisha and I got a little…" I paused, grinning impishly. "…side-tracked."

Before I could get a sardonic reply from him, Keisha stormed back into the cock-pit, her face a mask of pure fright and panic, "Docking bay staff are on their way. They look angry."

I raised my hands in a calming gesture, though the effect that I desired was totally reversed on her and instead made her expression drop into one of even deeper concern, so I hastily added, "It's alright, relax." I flashed her a playful wink as I headed out of the cock-pit. "I'll just use a little Corellian charm on them and we'll be good to go."

"Why does that sound bad?" Keisha remarked as she followed me out.

I triggered the boarding ramp with a slap of the release switch as I came to a stop in front of it, my wife standing a little distance away at my side, still looking nervous. As if began to lower, I pulled her against my hip and looped an arm through one of hers, then muttered in her ear, "Play along. I'm going to pull a smuggler's fade…so to speak."

I motioned Tee-Dee with a quick signal behind my back that he should follow us, and then strode confidently down the ramp. The staff were waiting at the bottom of it for us; the lead man was of a humanoid species, not one that I could identify however. His pale, yellowy-orange tinted skin contrasted horribly with his multi-toned green hair. In fact, it was the mish-mash colour scheme that made him look far more exotic than he actually was. His hard, weathered (well, by Tatooine standards anyway) face hinted that he had been on this sweltering planet far longer than he had wanted to be.

Currently the notches and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were contorted into a deeply sour expression, his gruff, demeaning voice also displaying his annoyance as he grunted, "You can't dock here, this spot is reserved."

I grinned cockily at him and the guards that were now flanking him, their blasters not-so-subtly raised in my direction. "I'll gladly pay for you to un-reserve it." I made an exaggerated sweeping gesture at the ship behind us. "Perhaps a bottle of Corellia's finest whiskey?" When the man continued to stare at me in a disinterested manner, I retrieved a credit chip from the pocket of my flightsuit. "Alright, I can see that you are a man that is not to be toyed with. Perhaps a crate of whiskey and 1000 Republic credits?"

The orange skinned man scoffed and laughed bitterly as he replied, "Republic credits? They aren't worth anything out here, hotshot. You're going to need a better offer than that."

I laughed and put the chip away. "Of course, I should know better." I walked towards them, causing them to instinctively part out of our way. "Then take the ship. I don't need it any more."

I could sense the man's interest grow immensely as we walked away, but he grunted a comment all the same, "Corellians, so full of themselves."

Over-hearing the comment, a smile crept onto my face as we finally left the spaceport. I came to a sudden halt a few steps outside of the entrance to it, my smile dropping into a look of horror as my gaze darted around the street, "I don't see him! He's moved on!"

Keisha squeezed my upper arm as she drew me across the street and headed towards one of the market stalls. "Calm down, we'll find him. He can't have gone far. Just keep moving and try to blend in. We don't know if there are any clones lurking around."

I nodded, still looking around. "I know. I just hope that we can catch up to him."

"Ne par nu pinir," she replied as we ventured over to a stall that was selling various clothes that I could only presume were native to the planet and its inhabitants.

She swept her hand across the table, investigating each, individual garment as she turned to me with a quick gaze over her shoulder. "Me copaani?"

I paused for a moment as I tried to work out what she had asked me, and then racked my brains as I tried to formulate a suitable answer from my scarce knowledge of the language she was using. Eventually, I just shrugged and replied, "Wer'cuy."

My wife rolled her eyes and turned back to the stall attendant who had just appeared in front of her and was watching her expectantly, "Kaysh mirsh solus." She pointed to two sand cloaks that her hands were resting on, one a dust in colour and the other a deeper shade of mahogany as she looked the woman directly in the eyes. "Tion solet?"

The woman's eyes narrowed as she looked blankly at her and then she bravely ventured a guess at what the strange customer had asked her, "Uh…two gold peggats." I noticed that Keisha waved her hand slightly, such a quick motion that someone without the Force would not be able to see fast enough. The woman changed her answer, "Or 20 Republic credits each."

My wife turned to me expectantly and I fished around in the depths of my flightsuit until I had produced some credit notes and handed them to her. She flashed me a wink and then whispered, "Vor'e, cyar'ika."

The two women exchanged the cloaks for the money as we began to move away from the market stall. When were no longer within ear shot of the woman, Keisha pressed the dark, mahogany cloak into my hands, that I slipped on as I asked, "Mando'a?"

She pulled her own cloak around her shoulders, muttering something about the garment's heavy material making her even hotter on this sizzling, dust-ball of planet as she looked casually in my direction and answered me, "We need to blend in. I thought a different language would make us sound like tourists."

"Tourists on Tatooine?" I raised the heavy hood of my sand cloak as I once again tried to spot Kenobi's own hooded form. "I think the sun is beginning to get to you, Sweetheart."

She was quiet for a moment as she joined me in my search, then replied absent-mindedly, "You do have a point. But, it is also highly unlikely that Skywalker is going to come for a scenic tour of his home world any time soon either."

"Skywalker, perhaps. But not his clone troopers." I stood up as tall as my height could muster to try and see past the small clusters of people milling up and about the street. Suddenly, I caught sight of him and quickly tapped Keisha on the arm until she looked at me. "I see him! Up ahead!"

She nodded, rubbing her arm as we picked up the pace of our walk. "I know, Kai, I know. Calm down." She nudged me in the side. "Try and get his attention."

I flashed a quick wink at her and then I opened myself up to the Force. In my minds eye, the presences of everyone around me burned with the dull amber colouring that the Force deemed people who were unable to touch the Force itself, but it still flowed through the energy sources. Kenobi's soul, however, was obviously a lot brighter than everyone else's. His blinding brightness dazzled my "sight", though there were certain patches upon him that had become tainted with shadow, as though the dark side had danced across his very being and stamped its evil footprints onto his back. I tried to project an amusing image of Keisha and I into his mind, but an armoured defence shoved me out before I had a chance of making any form of contact with him. Understandable: especially after all of the things that we as an Order had gone through in the past few days. I eventually resorted to tapping him on the shoulder with the Force to try and gain his attention.

It worked brilliantly. As he turned around to face us I dropped the hood of my cloak and pushed a beaming smile onto my face as we locked gazes. Kenobi's green eyes erupted into a shower of excited sparks, indicating that he recognised me as I had been hoping. He darted to the right a few seconds later and headed down a desolate alleyway. Keisha and I looked at each other for a brief moment and then rushed after him. The Jedi master turned down a few more streets and eventually came to a halt in a private, tucked away side-alley somewhere – I presumed – deep within Anchorhead's centre.

Before I could say a word, Master Kenobi hurried up to us as we entered the passageway and gripped my right arm in a tremendously firm handshake, "Master Darklighter! It is so good to see you!"

I smiled broadly and slapped him friendlily on the upper portion of his arm as I saw Keisha lower the hood of her cloak out of the corner of my eye as I greeted him back, "As with you, Master Kenobi. What has brought you to the dusty bowels of Tatooine?"

His gaze misted over and I instantly felt a pang of guilt leap up and down my spine as he finished embracing Keisha and finally turned his attention to me, "To find a place of solitude, my friend." He frowned slightly. "And what brings you to this planet?"

"For the same reason, Master Kenobi." I could not mistake the cautious, protective tone in his voice as he spoke. "We fled Coruscant after the clones stormed the Temple."

The Jedi Master looked astounded, "You survived the Temple attack?"

Keisha's gaze dropped down to the ground and I quickly slipped an arm around her shoulders to try and comfort her as I explained further, "We barely survived." The words in my throat became harder to form as the recounting became more personally painful. "Keisha was seriously wounded by Skywalker. If it hadn't been for Master Kendari, I would not have been able to get her out of the Temple to find some help."

Obi-Wan nodded. "I knew of him. Brave man. Is he not with you?"

I shook my head and reached out with my free hand to grip my wife's shoulder as I felt her entire body tense beneath my other arm. "He was lost on Coruscant after a battle with Skywalker. The ceiling of the main hanger began to crack and well it…crushed him."

The Jedi master grimaced. "By will of the Force! Such a nasty end!"

Keisha nodded in agreement and growled a reply, "And Palpatine has still not taken any action against Skywalker and these renegade clones."

Master Kenobi looked down at the ground and away from us, muttering in a small, almost inaudible voice. "He will not stop him."

"Why not?" I asked him in a matter of confusion, causing him to flash me an expression that questioned not only my naivety but where I had been for the past few months.

"Palpatine is the Sith Lord that started this war," Obi-Wan explained which resulted in two gasps from my wife and I. "The war was a ruse so that he could rise to power and use the clone army to turn against their Jedi comrades and extinguish them permanently, so that the dark could reign supreme."

Keisha raised a hand to her mouth and spun to face me in a mixture of dread and despair. "Then what happened to the others?" Her eyes became liquid brown as her urgency increased, "Master Halon? Master Daria? Phixx? Senu? Xavieron? Karana? Myana? Lena?!"

"Shhh… calm down," I whispered gently in her ear as I embraced her tightly. From over her shoulder I addressed Master Kenobi, "What can be done to stop Skywalker? We can't let him roam about the galaxy slaughtering the only Jedi that are left!"

The Jedi Master sighed, looking at his hands for a brief moment then up into my fiery, blue eyed gaze. "It has already been done, my friend. He was killed on Mustafar."

My face brightened. "How did that happen? That must have been a very tough Jedi that took him out-" Something in his eyes caught me short and I ended up gasping, "It was you, wasn't it? You stopped him!"

He looked away again. "He had become Palpatine's puppet. I had no choice but to do what I did. He was a risk to the galaxy."

I could not deny his failed attempt to try and justify his actions to us, though it was clear that the comment was more for his own peace of mind than for our benefit. He and Skywalker had practically been brothers, comrades in arms against ever-swelling and impossible odds. If anyone could have stopped the fallen Jedi – no Sith – it would have been Master Kenobi. No other Jedi had been around the sithspawn long enough to know his fighting style inside out, thus being able to work out what it would take to defeat him.

I reached out with my free arm and slapped my hand down heavily on his shoulder, then locked it in an iron grip as I spoke firmly yet reassuringly to him, "Master Kenobi, what you did was a terribly courageous thing. I know for a fact that no one, not even Master Yoda, would have been able to challenge him to a fight and be victorious." I laughed bitterly. "The events at the Temple were certainly proof of that fact."

Kenobi nodded, smiling gratefully. "You are right, my friend. It is such a tragedy though that his last moments in this galaxy were spent on darkness' brink." An awkward silence ensued as he squared his shoulders, and then asked us with a more casual tone. "So where do you plan to move on from here?"

A smile blossomed on my face as I slipped behind my wife and enveloped her once again in my arms and then fixed the Jedi Master with a boisterous gaze that made him grin back. "Settling down on a world somewhere until the Order is once more on its feet."

Keisha's eyes sparkled in shock as she looked up at me, but her smile was twinkling with almost as much excitement as her gaze once she understood what I was hinting at. We had never discussed having a family per say, but I knew it was something that we had both been thinking about, especially of late. The events at the Temple had probably scarred me for life, watching helpless younglings being slain by clone troopers and not being there in time to save them. I could not imagine a child of my own in that sort of situation, nor would I want to, or what would happen if I had lost my child to Skywalker's burning blue blade. Also…jedi were not supposed to have any kind of attachment to one another; and yet by the will of the Force, destiny had thrown my wife and I together and we had ended up getting married. So, why not start a family?

Obi-Wan's word were the only things that awoke me from my trance-like thoughts, "I am glad that you have been able to find some companionship during these hard times, Master Darklighter."

"As am I, believe me." I thought for a moment before adding, "Come with us, Master Kenobi. We have enough money to purchase a ship to get us away from this boiling rock. We can plan the uprising of the rebuilt Jedi Order!"

The Jedi Master looked skyward, a half smile crossing his face as his mind took him half-way across the galaxy and back again. When his gaze returned to us, his green eyes were burning with a new hope for the future. "Thank you, but my place is here."

I raised an eyebrow at him from over my wife's shoulder. "Are you sure? Banthas can't be that good for company."

Kenobi laughed with a strained effort, as if he had not made that noise in such a long time that his vocal cords had to adapt to the strange sound," I am sure that they are more talkative than they seem, Master Darklighter. I will be alright."

I nodded and untangled myself from Keisha and exchange a firm handshake with him. It was obvious that the conversation was coming to an end, and for someone reason I felt compelled to be overly friendly in the way that I was saying goodbye. A feeling deep in my stomach told me that I would never see this man again, "I don't doubt that for a second, Master Kenobi. Take care, and may the Force be with you."

He smiled and clasped my forearm in an unshakeable grip, "And with you, Masters Darklighter and Farlander. Stay safe and await the day that the Order shall return to save the galaxy from Palpatine's wrath."

Keisha embraced him and took a step back and flashed him a smirk that betrayed all of her hope for the new order. And eerily, reminded me of her brother somewhat, "Believe me, Obi-Wan, we will. And we will help to keep the light side alive for generations to come."

I smiled as Kenobi slipped past us and ventured once more out into the crowds and quickly slipped out of sight. My wife and I would await the time that the Jedi would spring back into the universe and right the wrongs of Palpatine's regime. I was still unable to shake a feeling that we were still being deluded as to the real situation once again.

"Where do we go from here?" Keisha asked, snapping me back to the present.

I shrugged. "Who knows? First, however, we need a ship."

My wife smiled and raised the hood of her sand cloak as she headed towards the alley's exit, "And a ship we will get. After all, we do have bags of Corellian charm on our side."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Into the heart of the enemy

Our ship, to be perfectly honest, left little to be desired. The shields were fairly decent, standard models that had become the norm among non-war ships during the Clone Wars. Our weapons were sparse too, leaving only one forward turret with a short firing range after the rear and side mounted guns had been removed to accommodate some extra storage space that the previous owner had used on smuggling runs. None of that particularly mattered, seeing as our aim was _not_ to get into danger of any form. Still, it was always good to have a back-up option.

The main thing that had begun to grate on me from the moment we had taken off, however, was the ship's definite lack of speed. The engines had been scaled down to provide more cargo space in the in the engine room, allowing bigger shipments to be smuggled into places. From my own knowledge, I would have thought that speed would be a necessity if one came into close call with either pirates or a Republic brigade. Apparently not, according to the ship's previous owner, he had been good enough to avoid complications and entanglements. Wayii, that guy had been full of himself.

Actually, after meeting the obnoxious man and purchasing his ship – once named the _Rogue's Bounty_ – my wife and I had decided to rename it. Although our current ship was nothing like the one that we had chosen to base the _Bounty's_ new name upon, we had finally come across the name the _Crimson Flame_. It was a risk that Keisha and I had chosen to take at the possibility of being recognised and hunted down by the Republic to honour the memory of my lost brother-in-law, naming the ship for him after his own ship, the _Crimson Breeze_. For now it was the best way we could preserve his memory before we could visit the Temple on Coruscant and lay a proper memorial to him.

I shook my head and cleared my thoughts as I once again resumed looking blankly at the Flame's navi-computer, futilely trying to think of an appropriate destination for our next galactic hop. Currently we were orbiting around the smuggler's moon of Nar Shaada, after refuelling the _Fire_ with some highly over-priced fuel. I had been hoping that by sticking to criminal, outer rim worlds that we would be out of the scrutiny of Palpatine and his clones. Yet again, I had been wrong. After encountering a squadron of clones on our minor hop to Ryloth, we had barely escaped being recognised.

Now I knew how determined Palpatine was becoming to exterminate the last of the Jedi, and how careful we needed to be to avoid any kind of a threat.

I barely registered footsteps entering the cock-pit whilst immersed in my thoughts until a pair of arms were looped about my neck and my wife's head appeared on my shoulder. "Have you found our next planet to visit?"

I nodded and reached out to tap the screen of the navi-comp that was showing an image of the last planet that I had been pondering, "Naboo. I heard that the Queen was receiving some hassle from Republic clones, so I thought we could swing by and lend a hand."

Keisha frowned. "I thought Master Kenobi told us to keep our heads down until the Order returned to free the galaxy?"

I looked to the side and flashed her a boyish grin. "He did. But take a look at the holo-net, sweetheart, there's news all across the galaxy of "treacherous Jedi" that are trying to threaten the Republic. I thought we might as well join in."

She squeezed my shoulders and took a step back, releasing me from the embrace. "Nice idea. It'll give me a chance to search for our profiles on Republic wanted lists and see what they know happened to us after the battle of Coruscant."

I nodded and was about to reply when my Force danger sense was erratically awakened many moments before our scanners became alive with the transponder codes that identified at least half a dozen Republic shuttles and battle cruisers reverting to real space all around us. I pounced forward to regard the console myself, though I already knew the extent of the danger we were now in. "Oh….gartal."

Keisha rushed up to my side and gripped my forearm so tightly that the limb began to grow numb. When she spoke, her voice was tight with fear and concern, "What do we do? They're everywhere!"

"Get out of here," I muttered as I sprung into action, diverting power from our shields and one remaining gun turret into our sub-light engines in an attempt to put as much distance between us and those ships as possible. No point in pretending to be someone else, they would have guessed our identity by now. All we could do was run. "I'm going to need some hyperspace co-ordinates now, and fast."

Fighting away her fear, my wife nodded as she replaced me at the navi-comp and began to co-ordinate us a journey through hyperspace.

"Come on! Come on!" I growled at the throttle controls as if that manoeuvre would encourage the ship to move any faster. I glanced at the scanners and felt my heart sink. The ships were moving into attack position. Blast it! How had they tracked us here? Did they know of our journey to Tatooine? Of our meeting with Obi-Wan Kenobi? Did they know where he was and they had finished him off, and then they had pursued us to finish the job?

"Keisha! I need those co-ordinates now!" I yelled as I prepared the hyper-drive, angling us towards clear space.

My wife's hands were trembling as she slumped back in her chair. "I can't! The navi-comp won't respond!"

I glared at her in utter horror as the cock-pit was tossed into an eerie silence. A single alarm rose, alerting us of a target lock. There was nothing we could do.

I leapt up from my chair, gripping Keisha by the wrists and yanking her up with me. I took her head between my hands and kissed her for a long final moment and then pulled away, looking deep into her eyes. "I love you. Never ever forget that."

Tears of fear and desperation welled up in her eyes as she buried her face into my shoulder as the ongoing silence became unbearable. I eventually growled in exasperation, "Just do it already!"

Surprisingly, I was answered once the com-unit bleeped, indicating that there was an incoming transmission. "_Crimson Fire_, halt your retreat and prepare for boarding, or we will open fire."

With one quick look at my wife I released her and dashed to comply with the order as she glared at me and exclaimed, "You want us to get captured?!"

I looked back at her after I had cut out the engines completely, "Well, what else can I do, Keisha? At least this way we can stay alive long enough to escape later."

She frantically pointed at Tee-Dee. "But what about Tee-Dee? If the Republic get their hands on what is inside of him…"

I raised a hand and she slowly quietened, "You forget that he was once Lao's droid, and your father's before that. He'll have some much security programming in him that no one will be able to access him.

She did not calm down, but I could tell that she was a little less worried about our situation. I knew how much Tee-Dee meant to her and how much we could not afford to let the little droid fall into enemy hands. Whatever the droid had inside him would be of valuable use to Sidious and his puppet Skywalker, due to the fact that all the information within him was top secret documents on mandates that Kegan had been given by the Jedi Council.

Our ship was jerked violently forwards all of a sudden, lurching me back into the piloting chair as my wife tumbled backwards and landed in my lap, then asked me when she was a little more stable, "What the blazes just happened?"

"Tractor beam," I groaned, causing her to look at me in a confused manner. "They obviously think that we may try to run away."

"As if we could even try to!" She exclaimed as her eyes went wide. "They have us completely surrounded!"

I looked over my shoulder and out of the viewport towards the fleet of ships that were clustered around the belly of a dagger shaped ship. A Stardestroyer, I presumed. I had never seen one of those ships personally up close, for most of my time had been spent on the ground fighting alongside the clones themselves. That had always been my preferred mode of combat. I had seen them dotted high above in the sky sometimes whilst we were fighting on the ground, and even then they had looked like a foreboding sight. Yet now, the cold wedge of the 'destroyer looked far more terrifying as he edged closer to it. There was something on board that was niggling away at the back of my mind, something elusive that I could not place a finger on. It was more like black smog crawling across my mind's eye. It was angular…sharp edged even…like the outline of some predator's helmet…

I let out a gasp of breath that I did not realise I had been holding. He was alive…

Keisha looked at me and the horror on my face, but seemed to be unable to detect what I had sensed. "What is it?"

"Skywalker…" I muttered, more to myself than in response to her question. "…he's on that ship."

"What?" She gasped. "It can't be! Master Kenobi killed him on Mustafar! He can't be alive!"

"Apparently the Kid was stronger than we all thought, because he is definitely on that ship," I replied and neglected to tell her the details of the helmet that I had seen. I sagged by in my chair and rubbed my temples, groaning, "We will not get out of this alive."

"Probably not." Keisha pushed herself up from her seated position on my lap and dropped down onto the floor. Her voice was unnaturally calm for this kind of situation. "But at least we can take Skywalker down with us."

I winked up at her, pushing a smile onto my face to put up a brave front, "There's the woman that I married."

"Let's hope that she stays around for a while. I could use some of her courage right now." She took a deep breath as the forward viewport became filled with the dashed grey of the approaching hanger bay of the Stardestroyer. "And no heroics. We still have a chance of escaping from captivity."

I gave her a wide smirk as the ship began to lower gently towards the hanger deck plates, "Since when did I start acting like your brother?"

She flashed a side long glace at me. "You already do, dear. You just don't realise it."

I heard a clunk reverberate through the ship, followed by a screeching scream that belonged to a laser torch and so quickly waved Keisha back to her chair. "Look casual. We don't want them to think that we're nervous."

My wife complied, and must have seen a glint in my eyes as she hastily hissed at me, "Don't do anything foolish."

"Hey, it's me." I replied to her with a wink and settled back further into my chair, crossing my legs over one another and letting my shoulders hang loose. All for show, but I didn't want to appear weak and afraid in front of Skywalker and his cronies. Survival of the fittest and all that. Eventually, the shattering, piercing sounds of the 'torch stopped and I could hear the_ boom_ as the boarding ramp came crashing to the ground.

I fixed a small smile on my face as a squad of clones burst into the cock-pit, their blasters trained on all of us, including Tee-Dee. I tapped the chrono that was fastened to my wrist as I looked the lead clone in his helmet lenses and made a slight tutting noise. "What took you guys so long? Skrag, standards have dropped since you betrayed us."

I took note of the clone to the lead's left as his posture stiffened considerably whilst his superior replied to me, "Kick your weapons towards us or we will open fire."

Now came the real test. I spread my hands wide and out to my sides, making no effort to retrieve my lightsaber from my belt. "Go ahead. I have nothing left to lose."

The leader withdrew his blaster pistol, just as I had been expecting and scattered a single shot against the wall behind Keisha's head so that the shot grazed her hair as it zoomed past. I continued to smile pleasently when she nor I flinched an inch. "Like I said, _we_ have nothing to lose."

"Let me handle this, Captain," boomed a deep, mechanical voice that drew everyone's attention towards the doorway. I was hardly surprised to see the man behind the voice, though his appearance did startle me somewhat. The sharp, angular looking smog that I had seen earlier was definitely a representation of the man's jet black helmet, his tinted red lenses and grill-shaped vocabulator were the only things that made him look vaguely "human". The winking lights on his chest flashed in random sequences upon a board that I presumed monitored the status of the suit that he was in. This was what Kenobi had reduced Skywalker to? I looked up into the helmet, his towering height not fazing me at all. He deserved every thing that had happened to him.

I could feel Keisha tense considerably, and it took most of my strength not to let her concerns rub off on me as I gave him an open gesture that required me to turn my palms upward and keep my arms out by my sides, "Be my guest. Your clones aren't doing a very good job so far."

Skywalker did not let his attention sweep towards my jibe. He continued to look down upon the lowly clone leader as he spoke in a passive, motorized tone that lacked all emotions, "One thing that you need to learn, Captain, is that if you want a person to comply with an order, then you must attack his weakness strongly."

"Yes, Lord Vader," the clone replied with a crisp salute.

I was powerless to stop it when the black-clad man decided to make an example of this weakness. With no more than a gesture of pointing five gloved, splayed out fingers towards my wife, lethal, electric-blue lightning crackled out of them and struck my wife in the centre of her chest. I pounced forward as her body shuddered twice due to the excessive electrical energy that coursed throughout her nervous system before she collapsed to the floor in a smoking heap.

I was at her side in an instant, pressing two fingers against her neck. A series of shallow thuds were the only things that I received to indicate that to indicate that she was barely alive. I crouched next to Tee-Dee and pulled my wife's limp form protectively close as I glared up at the Sith and hissed, "Aruetti!"

The dark Jedi looked down at me with almost pity, I could tell by the way that his head was slightly cocked to the side. "Now, weapons."

I yanked my lightsaber hilt from off of my belt and tossed it to the ground about a meter away from his feet and then retrieved the twin lightsabers from off of Keisha's hips and thrust them towards him as well.

Skywalker raised a palm and the three hilts rose into the air and dropped down into the awaiting hands of the stiff trooper. "See to it that they reach the prison cells unscathed. The droid can remain here until maintenance arrives. I want every inch of this ship checked."

The two clones to the clone leader's right tried to approach Keisha, but with a sharp, ice cold stare from me they kept their distance. I gently lifted her into my arms and was about to follow them out when I paused and spoke to Tee-Dee, "Keep safe, old friend. I'll see you soon."

I did not catch the end of his reply as I was roughly shoved out of the cock-pit and out of the ship: and into the heart of the enemy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter IV: Prison**

Prison.

It was common knowledge that prison could drive someone insane, but was that supposed to be true after only one day of imprisonment?

Probably not, but the confinement was driving me crazy. My cell was no wider than two metres across and approximately that in length. The décor did not help the feeling of being cramped. As if they would spend money on making prisoners more comfortable, had been a constant thought as I gazed upon the blank walls for what felt like hours.

Hours that were taking too long to pass.

I finally heard the noise of footsteps echoing from outside of the cell and found that I was almost relieved to have some more sort of action around. I pushed myself up into a crouched position and tried to rub the numb feeling out of my legs as the approaching pounding stopped outside of my door and muffled voices ensued. I could not make out any details from the words as the door of my cell shunted open, but what I saw before me struck more fear into my hastily thumping heart than mere words ever could.

My wife's limp form was dangling between the sturdy grips of two white helmeted clone troopers who were dragging her into a prison cell that was opposite my own. Her unfocused gaze fixed on me for only a brief moment before she was dumped roughly onto the cold floor. I scrambled forwards, pushing past everyone that stood in my way before dive rolling beneath the rapidly closing door and rushing to her side.

"Keisha," I muttered breathlessly as I looked down into her eyes, which seemed to take all of her energy just to remain unwaveringly locked on me.

Her voice came out as a silent whisper that I could not understand as if her vocal cords were even lacking energy.

It was at that point that the door rolled open with a sharp clunk and two fierce white gloves ripped me from my side and up onto my fumbling feet. A blaster pistol was driven so hard into my spine that as I lurched forward I was hardly aware of a stun bolt as it jolted through my nervous system and pitched me slamming onto the cold flooring of the Keisha's cell. My wife's reaction to the whole event was nothing more than her mouth forming a small "O" shape of shock: her whole body could perform nothing else.

My mind swelled at the detached feeling that stun bolt paralysis brought upon people to whom it was inflicted: cursing the galaxy that I had not been knocked unconscious. I tried to centre the world into some sort of order, but as I was dragged backwards up onto my feet by the one of the troopers my effort quickly collapsed.

All I was left with was the thought that I had been played. Clearly I was being taken for interrogation which would also explain the state the Keisha was in. Skywalker knew about our meeting with Master Kenobi - how, I have no idea - and now he was trying to use us to try and get to him.

By breaking our will power, apparently. Unfortunately, he had worked out the perfect way of doing that. My wife had some incredible mind powers - unrivalled among the Jedi Order - including Master Yoda himself. I could see why he had decided to drive Keisha to the point of physical exertion. He wanted to break her, wear her down until she cracked and gave him the information he needed.

Obviously, she had not succumbed to the torture: so he was going to try to break me.

I couldn't say that I had any particularly strong traits in the Force that Skywalker could manipulate. Unlike my wife, I had always been known within the Jedi Order as being a Corellian Jedi with a bit of an attitude - not known for any special powers. After some training quietly with Master Windu outside of the training from my original Master, I had vastly improved my mind skills, but still they were nothing spectacular. I tended to be better at the more physical abilities; moving large objects or repairing broken machinery. I had to admit, I was pretty good at mechanics.

So, how would he try to manipulate me? Somehow, I had a distinct and disturbing feeling that whatever I said to him would result in my death.

I only had one option, obviously. I had to die without telling him the location of Master Kenobi. It was my duty to not allow any more of the Jedi Order be slaughtered, and besides the ex-member of the Jedi Council was our best hope for any kind of new order in the future. But could I let Keisha go through the same thing, just to let one Jedi survive? Whatever choice I made would directly affect her, if Vader became so annoyed that he decided I wasn't worth his effort, and then he would choose the same about my wife too. And no amount of begging would spare her life, I knew it.

My only dearest hope was that she would understand my reason for protecting the future of the Jedi. On any other occasion, I had always put my family first, and nothing else could come above it. But now, I had no choice but to sacrifice the most important thing to me, all in the name of a greater good. Despite the situation, a sly, sardonic smile sneaked across my face: two of the only muscles that were now beginning to work after the stun bolt. After all, the time that I had spent training as a Jedi, this was the first - and ironically last - time that I had placed my duty ahead of everything else. I was finally the Jedi that I knew I should be.

With a gritted determination I raised my head and felt my grin widen all the more when my chin did not sag back down against my breast bone. I was even beginning to feel a sensation of the clone troopers' firm grips upon my upper arms, and even the dull ache that my trailing legs were enduring as I was dragged along to where they were taking me. We were certainly no where near the prison cells any longer, the bland, grey walls had been replaced with the dazzling white gleam of the more presentable corridors of this stardestroyer. A door loomed slightly ahead and on the right hand side of the hallway and towards its end. From the pulses in the Force I could only guess that this was an interrogation...and Darth Vader was inside.

What happened next is all a bit of a blur. I can't remember entering the room, nor being strapped to and bound to a chair in its centre.

Once the darkness had in my head had cleared, I opened my eyes to a blinding light that seemed to be surrounding me, but was most likely suspended somewhere above my head. I could see nothing but a white blur, not even the shadows of the other objects in the room, nor my own for that matter. I shook my head and blinked rapidly to try and get my eyes to adjust to the light, but it failed miserably.

"Is anyone there?" I croaked, my throat grinding like sand as I realised how long it had been since any form of liquid had touched my lips.

I got no reply, but the familiar sound of heavy, wheezing breaths that were as artificial and mechanical as they were sinister echoed forth.

"Skywalker?" I groaned, hoping for a deep growl that would diminish the cold sense of fear rumbling in my stomach. Unfortunately, I just sounded more and more afraid.

It was at that point that I began to feel uncomfortable and had no idea where I was or who was in this...place with me or how I had ended up here. When had I arrived? What was going to happen?

_Suddenly, the area around me erupted into unidentifiable shapes, curved, sloping grand stone walls that formed the beautiful architecture of our beloved Jedi Temple. I looked down at my hands, surprised to find that the black jump suit I had been wearing since Tatooine was now replaced with the multiple layers of my normal khaki-coloured Jedi robes. I ran a hand back through my hair and felt the shoulder length, black mane that I had fashioned throughout the Clone Wars bristle against my probing finger tips._

_I hadn't adopted an appearance like this since the eve of the Jedi Temple attack almost a month ago, when the circumstances had forced me to change in order to survive. This had to be a vision. But, everything was so realistic. This couldn't be a vision, could it?_

_As I was pondering this, I felt a firm grip take a hold of my shoulder._

"_Darklighter?" Came a strong question that caused me to look over at the person who was addressing me._

_The voice's owner had a bald head that not even stubble could touch, the only hair gracing his head were a small goatee at the base of his chin and eyebrows that were a chestnut brown in colour. The latter were locked into a look of concern, though his piercing brown eyes exuberated the normal cool, calculating calm that resonated from this man's being. He pointed down the corridor with a black, leather gloved hand that was clutching the hilt of his double-bladed, distinctive lightsaber. "Skywalker is in the Archives. He has Keisha and her apprentice cornered. We need to help them."_

_I barely registered retrieving my lightsaber from my belt and snapping it on in a sapphire brilliance. I thudded a heavy hand down on the Jedi's shoulder and nodded in understanding, "Right behind you, Master Meji."_

_Jedi Master Senu Meji gave me a grim smile and sprinted ahead with me trying to keep up the pace close behind. _

_Further down the corridor the hallway opened up into one of the many suspended walkways that linked the areas of the great building together. As we both reached the intersection where the walls parted us, we were both frozen in our tracks. All around, above and ahead, below and behind were the lifeless bodies of members of our esteemed order, littered amongst the limp and burnt out corpses of the traitorous clone troopers who were storming the Temple. Even as we stood completely motionless, small battles between multiple soldiers and single Jedi were erupting: constant victories by the former rather than the latter. Some Jedi were murdered on the spot as they tried to attend to fallen comrades. The clones were far different. If one of their brothers was plummeted to the floor injured, then none would try and save that clone's life. It disgusted me, and I could sense that it angered Master Meji even more._

_The double blades of his purple lightsaber sizzled into the air in with crackling snap hisses as he awoke from the horror of our reality. Spinning the blade between his fingers as he stormed forwards, he deflected a blue bolt from a clone that squeezed off a shot at him, then proceeded to block three more shots in rapid succession in right-left-right motions. When he was close enough, he flipped his lightsaber into a one handed grip and outstretched a hand, enclosing a clamping, invisible fist around the enemy's neck in an unshakeable choke. He took one further step closer and then with one swift and elegant stroke he relieved the clone of the need for a head._

_I followed his example on the opposite side of the walkway, though my moves were far less brutal but no less lethal. We made quick progress across the path, exchanging places on either side constantly as we covered each other's backs and disposed of the troopers with graceful lethality. It took only a couple of minutes before the Archive entrance was looming before us. It was then that the fear for my wife's life took over me and I thundered ahead, stabbing out to the right hand side of me and beheaded a clone that was standing guard at the doorway's edge in perfect synchronisation with Senu as he approached at my left hand side._

_And there ahead of us, stood Skywalker. His cloak hood covered most of his features in multiple shades of shadow, but a single shaft of light high-lighted the purely evil smirk that donned his expression. I forced myself to stare into the man's manic, raging blue eyes and not down at where his lightsaber was pointed._

_I shook my head as my jaw line hardened, "Let her go, Skywalker!"_

_My wife turned her head slightly, staring at me with eyes that were so wide and scared that her fear bored into me and sent a jolt of anger rushing through me. Skywalker snapped his blade in close to her neck, causing her to yelp and drop to her knees as she cowered on the floor beneath him._

_Please say this was a vision! Oh please say this was a vision!_

_No amount of pleading could stop the next few events. Thinking that Skywalker had been distracted by me, my wife's apprentice, Lena Arano, pounced forward, her scarlet lightsaber sizzling and slashing at the air as she tried to attack the fallen Jedi. The dark man did not even turn to face her. He raised a hand and made gentle flicking gesture with his fingers. Who knew that such a simple movement could cause so much havoc. The Force shove caught the young padawan directly in the stomach - before I could even cry out her name in utter horror - and sent her flying through the air and thudding hard against one of the Archive book shelves with a sickening thud. To finish it all off, the shelf came crashing down on top of her, leaving only her arm exposed as she had tried to reach for her lightsaber that was now as lifeless as it's owner._

_Grief poured through the Force like a leaking wound into my being as Skywalker turned back towards me with a sick and twisted smile on his face. I could feel the agony pulsing off of my wife's soul, burning into the air with a passionate hatred that made the fallen Jedi's smirk widen even more. Her apprentice's blade began to tremble, and before anyone could protest, the hilt was in her hand and leaping forward to slice open Skywalker's robes at his mid-section. He yowled in pain at the burning scar exposed across his stomach, causing my grief to blossom into a lust for vengeance._

_It was at that point that time seemed to slow._

_My wife gradually burst up onto her feet to continue her hate fuelled attack against the sick and twisted murderer. The scarlet blade of energy thundered slowly against his defense, drumming his blazing blue blade closer and closer to his own body. I could feel his anger rising and building up amongst my wife's. He wasn't angry at her in particular, just the fact that a "lowly Jedi Knight" was being able to hold up such a fight against him and perhaps even defeat him. The more the fury within him grew, the more my confidence shrank._

_I tried to shout out to her, to get her to stop and back away. But my vocal cords felt heavy, like they were caught in some kind of vice that they could never escape from and refused to work._

_Skywalker's saber slashed my wife was not quick enough to stop the attack. A deep gash dug deep into her arm, causing her lightsaber to thud to the floor as the Dark Jedi advanced, another stab crippling both of her legs as she dropped to the floor on her knees as she keeled over to the floor in blinding pain. The man fixed me with a dastardly and sickly smirk as he carefully poised his lightsaber directly above her writhing body, preparing to end her life like he had done to so many others._

_My lightsaber thrummed to life as I screamed, "NO!"_

_The clone troopers quickly descended upon us, surging against Master Meji and I. The Jedi Master's lightsaber immediately swished and swooped as it chopped down the forming onslaught: but even he was taken back precious footsteps away from Skywalker, unable to help._

_But nothing was going to stop me. I ran through the crowd, removing limbs and weapons amongst heads as I thundered towards her, no other objective than to save the woman that I loved. Skywalker was waiting for me to get closer...close enough so that I would be able to touch her as he cut her down. _

_I was going to make it! I was!_

My foot suddenly erupted into a blast of pain and sent me tripping and crashing towards the cold, stone floor. With one final, evil grin I was forced to watch as his humming sword pitched deep into her abdomen and sucked all of her life energy from her.

_I couldn't move! I couldn't breathe! I couldn't scream!_

_I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back tears, scolding hot tears that dripped down onto the floor that caused my breathing to increase rapidly. I don't remember ever opening my eyes again..._

It felt like hours had passed until I found that my spirit was still inside of my body and I was able to think clearly.

Well, clearly was an overstatement. I could feel a burning, damp sensation on my cheeks tingling and irritating. The death of my wife may not have been real, but my tears certainly were. And yet, I refused to open my eyes and seek comfort in the blinding light that lacked all shadow. Vader was putting these images...these visions...these old possibilities into my mind: trying to get me to crack beneath his unyielding mental torture.

Did he hate Kenobi that much? Did he hate him with such a fiery passion that he would stop at nothing to find out where the Jedi Master was hiding and grab the revenge that he thought he deserved? I was almost shocked out of my own pain by that revelation. He needed us. We were the closest and only link that he had left to finding his old master.

I could feel my good old Corellian ego swell in pride and confidence as the mechanical rasping of his voice echoed through my ears. At one point, I would have recoiled, but not now. I had found his shatterpoint - as Mace Windu used to refer to our deepest weaknesses, "It seems that we do not share the same optimism for what should have been the true outcome of our battle."

"No kidding, Aruetti," I growled and felt my confidence heighten as the strength that had miraculously returned to my vocal cords. For effect, I added a bitter sounding laugh. "And this is how you repay me for saving your wagyx back at the Temple."

I could feel the dark side pique around me. I was now viewing it like a sheet of delicate transparisteel, wherein the centre had begun to splinter by the most miniscule of cracks. Vader: the shatterpoint. I found myself praising Master Windu and anything that he had ever taught me.

But, the next event proved that I should have spent some time learning to guard my thoughts too.

"Your overconfidence is your weakness, Master Darklighter," Vader purred once again, his voice taking on a tone that was a slick and as dangerous as a nexu. "You place praise upon those who could not save themselves from my blade."

I opened my eyes, squinting against the light in search of his ghastly, black form. "What do you mean by that, Vader?"

I could feel the Force coil up into the expression of a man raising a patient eyebrow. I knew what he meant. Vividly. Clearly. Far too clearly.

I shook my head vigorously in silent protest, a sharp hiss escaping me. "No! You can't have! Master Windu took three other masters to arrest Palpatine! He can't be..."

My mouth was unable to form the last word. Skywalker had killed Mace? Impossible! He was a leading member of the Jedi Council, a master of the Force and tamer and wielder of the lightsaber form Vapaad. How could a mere...kid...end his life? One name sprang into my head: Palpatine.

I was finally becoming aware of events in the galaxy, and if Kenobi had been right about the once kind and caring Chancellor being a powerful Sith Lord, then it had to have been him who had taken down Master Windu. Skywalker could not have been that far gone by then to have mastered the dark-side enough to kill such a great Jedi.

He was dead. I knew it. My mentor and life long friend had finally found some peace. That thought did not ease my pain, however, it just concentrated it into a higher medium.

Vader spoke after a long silence had ensued, "Do not let any more of your friends suffer in such a manner, Darklighter. Tell me the location of Kenobi."

A laugh escaped me. An unnatural sounding chuckle that caused visible cracks to appear in that transparisteel. "You think that I believe you will simply let us walk away once I have told you where Master Kenobi is."

The Sith lord said nothing for a moment, but the cracks in the Force were beginning to repair themselves as I dropped a hint of where Kenobi might be. "You have my word."

Another laugh. "And your word is about as useless as Rancor spit." I grinned impishly. "If I go, then the whereabouts of Master Kenobi go with me."

There was an awfully long silence where narrowed, confident blue eyes met ferocious, tinted red lenses, sizing up each other. Vader knew that I had nothing to lose and yet he could lose everything that had made him so powerful to this very day: his hatred for a former brother.

"So be it, Jedi," came a final reply before the luminous light vanished and was replaced by a darkened blur.

I blinked rapidly to try and get my vision to adjust to the new level of ambience and was barely in time to catch the flash of brilliant white clone trooper armour. So Vader had decided that I was worth something to him. A good sign, to say the least.

Two gentle hands gripped my shoulders and I instantly felt a spark of recognition jolt through me as I pushed up onto my feet and lead away. It was only a single trooper, I noticed, and although to anyone else he may have been an anonymous face, but to me he was a breath of relief.

"Thrix?" I whispered my voice barely audible but I knew that his helmet speakers would be able to pick up what I was saying. "Is that you, old friend?"

I had to use the Force to amplify his voice in my mind because his response was even quieter than my question. "Fierfek, Darklighter. You need to learn when to shut the osik up."

I smiled and barely refrained from gripping him in a tight embrace. "You know me, when I am threatened I am never able to judge a situation well."

He ignored the comment. "You must be doing something right if you have survived two encounters against Vader." I knew what he was going to ask next. "Is everyone else alright? Kendari, Meji, the wookie?" He paused, as if gathering some bravado. "Lena?"

I nodded and almost tripped as he shoved me roughly in the back. "Everyone except the Kid, yes."

I could sense that his jaw was held firm within his helmet, but his shoulders sagged visibly in relief. "I'm sorry to hear that. Kendari was a great man. Where is everyone else?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea what happened to Meji after the attack of Coruscant, or Xavieron. Lena went home to Alderaan. Said she needed some time alone."

The clone nodded in understanding and was about to reply but I added a question quickly. I had to know why the clones revolted. "What happened, Thrix? Why did you turn against us?"

Thrix made a sound that sounded like the grinding of teeth. "An order came through from command that the Jedi were to be killed immediately. Apparently they were trying to overthrow the Republic and they needed to be stopped."

I looked back over my shoulder at him and felt a lump rise in my throat and threatened to clog up my next words, "Did...did you kill any...Jedi?"

The man's grip on my shoulders amplified. "No. I was a part of the medical teams aiding the wounded from Coruscant."

I could have hugged him. He was an ARC, one of the best trained by none other than Jango Fett himself. His genes had not been altered that much unlike the other clones. He was able to make up his own mind, meaning that the answer to my final question would be his own opinion and not one that had been tampered with by Kaminoans. "Do you believe it? Do you think that the Jedi would try to overthrow the Republic?"

He spun me around to face him with incredible strength, and I thought that I could see right through his helmet. "I couldn't believe it then, and I can't believe it now."

I smiled in a mixture of relief and gratitude. "Good to know. I am glad that not all of our friends have betrayed us."

Although his visor was tinted midnight, I caught a hint that he was smiling. His voice was still very hushed but I could gather that he was happy. "I am glad that you still consider me to be a friend after all that has happened." He released his grip on my arm and clobbered me hard across the back of the head to make it look like I had been resisting. He should have felt lucky that I was had let the action pass in this current situation; normally I would have retaliated - much harder. "And I will try to find a way to get you out of here - you and Master Farlander - I promise."

I rubbed the back of my head and felt my stomach drop as I recognised my cell door. "I would greatly appreciate any help that you could provide, Thrix."

"Then you have my word..." His voice rang with ironic amusement as he replied, "...and it is much more valuable and reliable than Vader's."

As we approached my cell, the door opposite to mine rose open and a woman with medium length brown hair and even deeper and darker brown eyes was dragged out, her resistance genuine and not at all half-hearted like it had been earlier on.

We locked gazes, and I did not need to make any kind of gesture before she over-powered the guards that were restraining her and wriggled free of their grip. I knocked Thrix back a step with a hefty shoulder tackle and rushed forward to meet her. The ARC made no attempt to stop me. Before the clones had so much as exclaimed in frustrated protest she had met my lips and was currently locking me in a deep and hypnotic kiss that lingered and increased in passion, so much so that my stomach fluttered and my brain was over-loaded. And still, I did not pull away until Thrix and her escorts dragged us apart.

The ARC yanked me backwards, trying to make it look like he was putting some effort into restraining me, and I was more than willing to lash out and try to escape from his grasp to keep up this impression. One of the other clones that were helping to drag Keisha along came up behind me and sharply fired a stun bolt into the backs of my legs, crippling my balance and causing me to flop down to the floor on my knees as I lost all of the feeling within them. My wife tried her best to rush forward and see that I was alright, but she too was pelted by a low energy stun bolt in the centre of the back of her neck and went as limp as the bottom half of me. I could feel the tension that Thrix had in my shoulders intensify as they dragged her away.

I was pulled into my own cell by the ARC, who I immediately began to yell at, "Where are they taking her, Thrix?! You've got to find out!"

Thrix looked tentatively over his shoulder to see if anyone had heard me call him by his name - I supposed - and then raised his hands and patted the air to try and get me to calm down, "Relax, Darklighter. I'll take care of it."

He raised two fingers to the top of his helmet and flashed me an informal salute and turned and left the cell, leaving me feeling totally helpless...


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter V: Escape **

Two days had passed.

How did I know? I had been counting off the hours silently after Thrix had left me, even when the darkness of sleep began it seemed that I could keep a counter going in my mind. Why had he not returned to me yet? I was desperately hoping that he had not been discovered as to having sympathies for some of the prisoners. Then again, I was also hoping that he had not been called away upon some kind of mission which would mean that he could not tell me where Keisha was.

As these thoughts were drifting through my head I noticed that I was up on my feet and pacing the short length of my cell. I cursed under my breath. I had not noticed that I had made this kind of movement, for I had been so deep in thought. Now it was probably known to the clones meandering up and down the corridor outside on patrol that I was becoming anxious. Not a good thing when I would need to be strong against Vader. He was getting to me: that much was obvious. It usually took a lot more to break through my Corellian bravado, but normally my family was not under a direct death threat. Being placed under heavy fire was a lot safer than being at the mercy of a Sith Lord.

Not that I had been before, I suppose. The dark side had always been strong around me - well, it's influence anyway - and yet I had never fallen to it...that much. My wife had a history of shadow: her father - the legendary Jedi Knight Kegan Farlander - once asked to join the Jedi Council but gallantly refusing because he preferred a position down near the action, helping to protect the innocent and inflict justice more directly had been the main source of this evil. He had been a valuable asset to the Jedi Order - one of the leading and remaining Jedi Archivists who probably knew more about the Order than Master Yoda himself, I expect. It was knowledge that he would pass down onto his son after darkness and sorrow tainted his soul and his commitment when he finally broke free of the "shackles" of the Jedi Order.

Keisha was constantly afraid of being on that brink, that thin line that was mired between light and dark, in case she might follow in her father's footsteps. Her younger brother had been a lot less reluctant, and had proved that on various occasions. Like Master Windu, however, he knew when to come back from the void where you could easily lose all control. It seemed though, after every time he fell prey to the dark emotions that a tiny piece of his light side was sucked from his soul. Every time that I had reached out to sense his presence in the Force his being had glowed a dull shade of amber - strong, don't get me wrong - but it was the typical colour of a blazing light soul that had been struck by evil. A single, speckled star trapped in a tainted void.

I finally stopped pacing and headed over to the bunk at the back of my cell and dropped down onto it with a metallic clunk. Well, to label this a "bunk" would be a great overstatement. It was basically a slab of cold, hard durasteel that was raised and suspended about three feet in the air and welded roughly to the metal of the farthest back wall of the cell. It was uncomfortable, to be certain, but I had slept in far worse conditions over my time as a Jedi.

That thought brought a grimace to my shoulders and I was barely able to suppress a surprise shudder. My way of life had changed, and I would never be a Jedi again. Growing up, I had always had this boyish fantasy that whenever I met someone new and they asked me what I did for a living, my chest would swell with pride as I announced that I was a Jedi. Such an admission now, though, would have me killed on the spot. My anger grew slightly. After all of the things that the Jedi had done for the galaxy, this was how we were repaid. Hated. Outlawed. Hunted.

On regular occasions, whenever I was back at the Temple from fighting some meaningless battle in the inner rim, outer rim or even beyond, Master Windu and I would often meet for meditation sessions that were often invaded by some intrusive dark energy that pitched us into sharing our deepest fears for the Order. He had told me about some highly classified meetings that the Jedi Council had shared. I had told no one of what we had discussed in those meetings - not even my wife, Keisha.

And now he was gone. One of my only true friends from the Jedi Order. It both pained and shocked me to think that the great and keen warrior had fallen to the hissing brilliance of some...some mere kid's blade. Mace had told me that the Council believed young Skywalker to be the chosen one; a prophecy that detailed of one single being extinguishing the dark side and ultimately bringing balance to the Force. Little had we known that on his journey to complete this - if he was still filling out his destiny - then he would need to first slaughter ninety nine percent of the light side to then join the Sith themselves!

The sound of thudding footsteps awoke me from my ranting and raving thoughts. I sat bolt upright as my cell door opened and fought to keep a furious grin from rising on my face as I recognised who was entering. Only when the door had drifted closed did I ask, "Have you found her? Where is she?"

Thrix removed his helmet and I could see that his midnight coloured eyes were contracted by lines of worry. "Master Farlander is to be put to death for crimes against the Empire within the next twelve hours."

"What?" My heart sank. I fought back more rage fuelled tears as I spluttered, "No...We can't let that happen! You have to help me get out of here, Thrix! I can't lose her..."

The ARC was silent for a long, painstaking moment as he thought. Eventually, he looked my directly in the eyes. "What would you do to save her, Darklighter? How far would you go?"

I looked confused for a moment but my reply was determined and sincere and as hard as duracrete, "I'd do anything! Surely you know that!"

He looked grim and released the safety catch on his blaster holster and removed the gun from within it. He tossed me the weapon without even a moment's hesitation, "Shoot me. Take my armour and get yourself over to Master Farlander, and then get yourselves out of here."

I looked up at him with a dumb-founded expression. "What?"

He cocked his head towards the blaster as I caught it and tapped a single gloved finger against the middle of his forehead. "You heard me. Shoot me here. My death will be instantaneous and virtually pain free."

I continued to stare up at him in utter horror. "You can't be serious? I can't shoot you!"

"Kai," His voice was firm, unwavering, controlled. "Just do it."

I raised the barrel, my finger slipping easily into the trigger grip with ease. Using the Force, I was able to raise the foresight so that my crosshairs were in level with his forehead, and yet I found myself hesitating. Before me, Thrix stood perfectly calm, his hands clasped behind his back and feet spread shoulder length apart as if he was about to issue orders to a squad of troopers, not be shot. My mind whirled, remembering all of the missions that he had accompanied us on. How he had saved me from the hands of Dooku on Trandosha. How he had fought gallantly along side Keisha's padawan on lethal Induomodo. How he had effortlessly gone undercover with us on Nar Shaada and helped protect my family for nearly half a decade. He was as much a part of my family as Keisha.

My grip on the weapon went slack and it dropped to the floor with a silent clatter. "I can't shoot you, Thrix. You're like my brother. There has to be another way."

Thrix flashed me a broad smile as his eyes glistened at the joy of being referred to in such a way. He motioned with his right hand and I used the Force to send his blaster surging back into his palm with a plastoid on plastoid slap. "Glad you said that, Kai." He raised his hands twice and indicated that I should stand up. He waited until I had done so to continue, "How tall are you?"

"5"10," I replied instinctively.

He grinned all the more. "This is almost too perfect."

I remained standing where I was as he moved across the room and pressed himself up against the wall nearest to the cell door. He reached down and retrieved a knife from a sheath on one of his boots, and I instantly recognised its hilt design to be that of the one that my brother-in-law had given to him. His tone of voice had dropped several decibels when he spoke again, but there was an undercurrent of anticipation and excitement to his words, "Make as much noise as you can. Shouts, bangs, whatever."

I frowned for only a moment, not in a sense of confusion but wondering what I should do. I spread my hands out wide to my sides and made a flicking motion with my fingers, sending reverberating Force shoves into the walls of the cell and making large bangs batter the room. I paused for a moment and yelled, "You can tell Vader, kriff him! I will not tell him the location of Master Kenobi!"

The door of the cell rolled open quickly, and a single clone trooper blazed into the room, blaster raised. Thrix lunged forward, wrapping an arm around the clone's shoulders in what could have been interpreted in a friendly gesture. It certainly was not. His other hand that was holding the knife lashed out and stabbed deep into the body glove neck piece of the clone's armour, just beneath the man's helmet. I reached out with the Force and dragged the clone's limp body onto the bunk behind me.

I looked towards Thrix with a confused and startled expression. "You killed him? I thought the clones were you brothers?"

The ARC crouched down next to the limp clone and began to unclip his armour plates. He looked up at me briefly as he worked. "They lost the right to be my brothers when they betrayed the Jedi."

I grinned at him and ducked down next to him as I helped him to remove the armour plates one by one and stack them just off to my left hand side. "What do we plan do with him?"

"Make him look like you." He indicated the utility belt around my waist and the clone's armour. "Change into that. It should give us long enough to get out of here."

I nodded and removed my belt and tossed it to him before I began to slip into the armour plates. I found myself grinning at the ease in which I was able to place the correct pieces into the right order, unlike what I had been able to do long ago on Induomodo. Keisha had to help me accomplish such a simple task, though it was there that we had first...admitted our true feelings towards each other.

Thrix seemed totally oblivious to the thoughts fluttering through my head as he finished trying to make the dead clone look like me and had rolled the clone onto his side, back facing the door so that it looked like he was sleeping. The ARC rose to his feet a second later and admired his handiwork. "That should keep them occupied for a moment whilst we escape."

I nodded with a sly grin as I completed the task of arranging my armour and cradled my blaster in my arms. "Ready?"

He nodded and strode towards the door. I hung back for a few moments and memorised how he walked, and then followed him with the same "swagger" as he sometimes referred to it. He looked back at me with a curious tilt of his head as he replaced his helmet upon his head and indicated that I should do the same. When my own helmet was securely upon my head, he triggered the door release and stepped into the corridor.

I came up to his side and stood to attention as he locked the cell once again and marched rapidly up to a quickly approaching Captain and his sub-ordinate. I could only identify the clone's rank by the fact that Thrix saluted him and called him "sir", proving that he was of a higher ranking than the ARC. "Sir, we managed to quieten the prisoner with a stun bolt. I advise that the next patrol take extra caution when handling him."

"Sir" saluted him and once again and muttered, "Excellent work, Trooper. We'll take care of this from here."

As Thrix marched on past I hurried up to his side and fell into step beside him. "Trooper? I thought you were a Sergeant."

"Was being the correct tense, Darklighter," his reply was a cold, deep growl even through his helmet speakers. "Vader saw it fit to demote me when I refused to join the aruetiise 501st legion."

I paused for a second, thinking, and then asked, "Why didn't he just kill you? So far I've gathered that he isn't too big on insubordination."

I could sense that Thrix had a hungry grin hugging his cheeks as he sardonically answered, "ARCs are hard to come by. Not many survived the Clone Wars." He shrugged as he led us down the corridor to my left. "Someone from higher up must have told him I was useful still."

I nodded and had to remind myself to relax as I could hear the startled shouts from the way we had come as it became clear that the male Jedi Knight had escaped. A tense looking clone trooper would certainly leak out my true identity right now.

Thrix kept on walking, keeping his blaster held in close against his chest plate as he hissed, "We need to hurry this along. These Hutuune will be looking for us any moment now. Got any Jedi tricks that can get us out of this?"

I shrugged. "I can't project an image of us walking the other way, for starters. That was always Keisha's job." I had a sudden brain wave. "But maybe we don't need anything grandiose."

A claxon began to whir and blatt throughout the detention center, and I fell into the Force. The squad of clones came jogging down the corridor, cradling the blasters like babies of death as they began to scour the prison cells for the escaped Jedi. As one stopped and took note of us, he started to take a step towards us in an effort to check out our identification, I supposed. Before he could get close, I reached out and pulsed a blinding flash into the trooper's mind. It was my own adaptation of the "Force Flash" that all young Jedi learnt to master as young padawans a simple Force shove that could knock out machine circuitry whilst one walked past a security camera, for example. My mind skills were skilled enough to form and project an image that had sound and movement, the one simple light was easy enough.

The clone froze, his helmet tilting to one side so that I could perceive he had been momentarily blinded. Thrix and I darted ahead and down another right and a left, my perceptions alert to the dull red threat of mechanical objects and vibrant red for living targets that could be an opposition to us. Force flashes bounced off of the walls and masked our progress completely.

"How much farther do we have to go?" I asked as I stopped in a dull grey alcove and took in a deep breath, almost reeling at the tremendous pain that surged through my head. The bright flashes were beginning to get to me too. "I don't think that I can keep this up for much longer."

Thrix grabbed one of my armoured arms and yanked me deeper into the shadows. I popped the catch seals of my helmet and yanked it off, breathing in the unfiltered air greedily. The ARC retrieved a med-pack from off of his utility belt and withdrew a single needle. Before I could protest, he had peeled back the collar of my flightsuit and jabbed the injection deep into a vein in my neck. He removed it a second later and dropped it to the floor with a muffled clatter as he directed me to replace my helmet on my head.

"Should kick in within three minutes," he explained before peeking back down the corridor to check if there was anyone around. I could sense that he was frowning through the Force. "I don't like this. Where are all the patrols?"

I grinned as I used a portion of the Force to aid the pain killer in its journey through my bloodstream. "I triggered the door releases on the prison cells that we have been passing. There should be a hefty prison riot that needs to be dealt with right now."

The ARC looked back at me with an approving nod. "Kandosii. That should keep them busy for a little while longer."

With that, he broke off into a sprint down the corridor with me hot on his heels. The adrenaline was finally beginning to kick in, and I was pleased to find that the pain in my head had been reduced to a dull ache. I was starting to enjoy myself. Being a Jedi and being a Corellian suited my adventurous streak perfectly. That's why I know that I could not have taken Kenobi's advice of settling down somewhere - well, not yet anyway. I had only just turned twenty four standard years old this year. I was still young enough to cause some severe damage to the Republic and Palpatine's regime.

Escaping from Vader's dark side clutches was going to be the first stepping stone to becoming a martyr.

I laughed and raised a hand in level with my face, and then swept it gently from right to left across my shoulder width. The doors made a nasty jarring and screeching noise before the finally yielded and opened quietly before us.

The ARC leant precariously over the edge of the turbo lift shaft and looked sharply up and down it, then turned back around to face me. "Got any more Jedi tricks that could get us into a turbo lift?" He indicated the blaster in his arms and made a tutting noise of disgust. "These shablu things are equipped with ascension gear."

I frowned. "Now would be a good time for me to use my lightsaber."

Thrix laughed bitterly and pulled a piece of something that looked like whip cord from off of his utility belt. He wrapped it around his fingers and looked back at the shaft. "I don't know if this cable will stretch to the floor that we need."

An idea suddenly popped into my head and I asked, "How many floors up do we need to go?"

"Three."

I grinned impishly and removed my helmet and began to unclip my armour plates. He flicked his attention back to me with a look of horror on his face and asked, "What the osik are you taking that off for?"

"To get us a lift." I had removed everything except my gun belt by the time that he had finished speaking. I pointed to the armour plates that were stacked neatly on the polished floor. "That lot will weigh me down."

I removed the piece of whip cord from my own belt and took the ARC's from his hands and tied them together in a tight night. I tugged on both bits of cords to test the strength, and then released them both when I was satisfied. I waved him away from the doorway and looked him straight in the eye. "Be prepared to be whipped into the shaft suddenly."

He raised two fingers to his helmet visor and flicked them towards me in an informal salute. I was amazed at how easily he could trust me, after all that had happened over the past couple of weeks.

I returned the salute with a gentle smile as I coiled the Force around me like a spring and bounded forward, gripping a loose power conduit on the opposite wall of the shaft to us with one hand. It creaked as it sagged beneath my weight, and I had to toss a second hand up onto it before I felt more secure. I tucked my legs up and braced them against the wall, clinging to it like some kind of crazed insect. I then made the mistake of looking down. The air whistled around me and caused my head to whirl as I comprehended how much of a fall I would have to endure in the never ending darkness before I became splattered against the shaft's bottom. I shook my head to rid myself of the thoughts as I let go of the conduit, rolling my legs back over my head as I kicked off of the wall and back-flipped a little higher up the wall behind me. As my feet made contact with the wall I stretched out with the Force and pounced back up to the opposite side and gripped the bottom of the door that opened to the floor above us.

I risked a look down once again to check the cord was still around my waist, but couldn't see anything past the end of my dangling legs. I yelled down the shaft to Thrix, "Mind giving me some light up here?"

A heartbeat passed before the turbo lift shaft became illuminated with the glow of the ARC's helmet lamp. "Thanks." I reached down and tugged on the cable. "How much do you have left?"

"Enough," came a call from down below me. "But keep it moving. There could be a patrol here anytime soon."

"Alright, alright. Relax." Instead of bounding backwards I sent a Force shove down the shaft and propelled myself straight up to grip the bottom of the second floor's door. I was very nearly ripped away from the small ledge as the cable became taught and bounced as Thrix was whipped into the shaft with me. The light swayed as I glanced down to check on the ARC who was crashing with large bangs as he swung backwards and forwards.

"You all right?" I called as the light finally began to stop swaying.

"Feel lucky that you're up there, di'kut." Was the growl of a reply.

I grinned. "Just one more floor and we're there. Ready?"

"Get going," he called back and I could sense that he had tucked himself up into a ball to lessen the impact of future bands against his armour.

I released my grip for the final time and sprang upwards to the bottom of the third floor door and barely gripped it in a white knuckled lock as Thrix's extra weight heaved on my gun belt and threatened to drag me down the shaft with him. I curled my feet up under me and desperately tried to find a secure footing. Once I was satisfied, I called, "Alright, I'm set. Start climbing up."

I used the Force to ease the constant jerking as the ARC hauled himself up the wire beneath me.

Thrix shouted up to me in amongst the grunts as he pulled himself along. "We're...almost at...the execution block."

One thought had crossed my mind. _There's_ _a block for that? An entire block?!_ "Good to know. How many hours do we have left?"

I could see his helmet begin to emerge in the gloom. "Nine hours. We've got to remain...hidden for that...long though."

I smiled and then looked up, searching the turbo lift shaft for something that I could use to open the doors. "Plenty of time. We'll get -"

A tremendous shrieking of rapidly approaching metal stopped me immediately and the both of us looked up slowly. I thrust my hand up and reached out with the Force as I grabbed the lift in a Force grip and tried to slow it down. "Thrix, speed it up!"

The jerking increased as the ARC scrambled up the wire. The lift was quickly slipping through my fingers, my grip loosening as the pressures acting upon the lift such as gravity and air turbulence became so large that I could not control them or keep them at bay.

At the split second that I felt Thrix's strong grip on my ankle, I sprang into action. I made a waving gesture with the hand that I was holding the lift up with and the doors parted open above us. I released the grip off of the rapidly approaching lift and plucked the ARC from off of my foot and roughly tossed him in through the gap. With one final glance up, I let out a grunt as I hauled myself to the next floor, aiming to land in a dive roll that would bring me into a combat ready battle stance. The whoosh of the lift sent me pitching forward as I landed so that I ended up lying unceremoniously on my stomach.

"It's alright, it's clear," I heard Thrix mutter breathlessly before he helped me up onto my feet. He let out a soft whistle as he stepped behind me. "Wayii, Darklighter. You trying to run me out of pain killers or something?"

It was only when he said that that a searing pain surged up my back. Upon turning to one of the reflective white walls around us I could see a deep gash where the lift had clipped me as it had shot past. I shrugged my shoulders and barely hid a wince as the action erupted my back muscles into spasm. "Save them for later. It's not as bad as it looks." I was pretty certain that I would not catch a virus whilst in the uber-cleanliness of this place if I left the wound open to the elements. "Where do we head now?"

"The weapons store," the ARC replied as he explained further after I raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, you do want your lightsaber back, don't you?"

My lightsaber! I had completely forgotten about it. I nodded vigorously in answer to the question. "It'll be handy for then the next turbo-lift comes around."

He nodded and pointed towards the ceiling. A security camera was in the progress of swinging its artificial eye around to our position. "Then get Force flashing. Without your armour you're about as conspicuous as krayt dragon in a heard of banthas."

I grinned and reached out with the Force to grip the optical sensor and freeze it in place, angled away from us. We both edged down the corridor, each one of us hugging a wall as we headed towards the "T" junction at its end. He pointed left and we quickly journeyed down four more corridors until we reached an area that he claimed was the weapons store.

Standing on opposite sides of the door, I caught the blaster that the ARC tossed me and was slightly impressed at how he had remembered to bring it with him. I checked the amount of shots that I had left within the battery clip and frowned. Not a single shot fired. How had we been able to stay hidden for this long? I pointed at the door and made a point of setting my blaster onto "kill". Nothing was going to take us by surprise.

Thrix elbowed the door release - how he knew the access codes to out-of-bounds areas like this when he was a mere clone trooper, I had no idea. In the blink of an eye he was through the door and quietly calling "clear" and then motioning for me to follow him in. I slipped in, keeping my blaster raised at all times despite the "all clear" signal. This was too easy. There had been no sign of Vader anywhere, and I was pretty certain that he wasn't foolish enough to not follow our trail of faulty security cameras right up to our position. Then again, anyone who did believe that Palpatine was anything albeit a Sith Lord who wanted to take over the whole galaxy, then they must have a few screws loose. It pained me to think of that thought as it included most of the sentient beings in the entire galaxy.

With a sigh, I followed the ARC around several blaster storage racks and stopped before a sealed cabinet that contained four lightsaber hilts. Wait...four lightsabers? I gazed down and counted them once again. Why the blazes were there four? I only owned one, a silver blue and black one that apparently resembled the one that my father used to wield, though I had sparse few memories of him. He and my mother had died when out on an excavation with the Jedi exploration corps, when a tomb had collapsed and crushed them. Well, that was what I had been told, anyway. Next to mine were Keisha's twin hilts, the simple silver hand grip intertwined with flecks of soft coloured gold and amber. She told me that she had just liked the colour when she had first constructed them, but deep down on some unreachable level I knew that the colour was to resemble the twin amber blades that both her fallen father and lost brother had wielded throughout their time as Jedi.

I studied the fourth hilt and frowned at it, feeling some significant connection to it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Thrix remove his helmet, as if the artificial heads-up display was clouding his vision. He was shaking his head very, very slowly as if in a silent protest, his eyes wide with a mixture of sorrow and surprise as he murmured, "It…it can't be."

A lump rose in my own throat and I was instantly reminded of that horrific battle that Vader had planted into my memory. The fourth hilt was crimson and silver, the hand grip about half way up the smooth surfaced cylinder was striped with the pattern of scarlet, silver and tarnished bronze that made the weapon look far older than it actually was. A black dial on the right hand side of it controlled the blade's intensity, a couple of inches higher than the lightsaber's charging port that was towards its pommel. But what really made the blade distinctive was a small, golden disk that was welded in centrally an inch above the handgrip and an inch below the blade emitter. It was a Jedi credit. To be precise, it was a Corellian Jedi credit, one of the few that I had given to friends and family after my promotion to Jedi Knight.

There had been four people in total: my wife, Phixx (my lost apprentice), Thrix and…

The ARC had opened the case with a well-aimed blaster shot by the time I had returned to reality and had tossed me my lightsaber hilt and my wife's too. He kept a firm grip of the silver and scarlet one, his midnight eyes narrowed as if he was concentrating upon it as he spoke, his voice distant, "Vader took a trip to Alderaan to meet with Senator Bail Organa." He paused for a moment and then continued, "Reports came back that he had fought and destroyed a female Jedi who was trying to enter the system."

I glanced at the lightsaber in his hands and tried to find words that would comfort not only his anguish but mine too. The weapon belonged to Keisha's apprentice, Lena Arano, who had headed to Alderaan almost a month ago and had since not made contact… "I…I'm sure she's alright, Thrix. She can take care of herself."

I could feel the ARC's pain washing over him in waves, he had been particularly close to Lena. It was at that moment that I could see a shocking vulnerability behind his calculating military exterior. "You were there at the Temple, Darklighter! You saw what Vader was capable of! There's no way that she…"

His voice trailed off and in blazing anger he shattered the case that had once contained our lightsabers. A claxon began to wail, and I shook my head. We needed to focus. I stepped forward and took a firm grip upon his heavily armoured shoulder and then shook it so that he would look at me. I held onto his gaze strongly and spoke in a tone of voice that was serious and calm, "Thrix, we need to get some focus. If the Republic kills us then we will be of no use whatsoever. She could still be out there, and we still have a chance of finding and helping her. Now, snap out of it and lead us to Keisha."

The ARC looked like he was about to smack me straight in the face for being so rude when I spoke to him, but he managed to restrain the urge. He tucked the lightsaber onto a belt loop on his utility strap and placed his helmet back upon his head, morphing into soldier mode once more. I threw my blaster over to him and he took his own and mine in a single grip each, checking that they were both set for kill. His answer to me was a sly grin. "Then we'd better move on."

I curtly stepped back and allowed him to step past me whilst I retrieved my lightsaber from my belt and attached Keisha's securely to it. I followed Thrix back to the door and then stopped him with a tap on the shoulder and whispered, "What should we do? Sneak or storm?"

The commando turned back to face me, grinning impishly behind his helmet. "Storm."

"Good choice," I remarked as my sapphire blade thrummed to life and seemed to pinch the noise of the alarm from the air.

I pushed past him and thumbed the door release, allowing it to roll open as I stuck my head around the door jamb to check for possible enemies. A quick grip on my collar and being wrenched backwards a few steps saved me from the answering volley of fire that sizzled into the doors framework where my face had once been.

Over my shoulder, I could hear Thrix sigh as he released me from his grip. "I thought the Jedi were cautious beings."

I grinned at him and made my way back over to the door, "I'm one of a kind, remember."

More prepared this time, my cobalt blade caught the next trio of bolts right in it's hissing center and sent them singing towards a clone's head and forced him to duck…right into a glancing shot from the ARC that dropped him like a stone. Feeling more confident, I stepped fully into the corridor, my hissing shaft of dangerous energy ready for a fight until I found myself looking down the business end of an E-Web repeating blaster turret. This was going to be a little trickier. The ARC was down on one knee, shielded slightly behind my lightsaber and the door frame, his blaster aimed directly at the clone behind the gun. I grinned and stood perfectly still, waiting as the highest ranking clone had got his squadron into a tight formation that would have nearly a dozen blasters turned upon us.

"Place your weapons on the ground, Jedi, and step towards us with your hands in the air," Came a call from one of the squad, but which one, I had no idea.

I bent down into a crouch and placed Keisha's lightsaber hilts onto the floor and then looked up at the man behind the cannon with an amused grin on my face. I could feel the tension rising in the air as they tried to work out what I was going to do. They would have no idea though. I projected a small Force wall up against the muzzle of the E-Web cannon and then reached out to grasp its trigger that was enveloped within the uneasy grip of the clone. Without saying a word, I pulled on it and the resulting un-escaped energy caused the turret to explode in a sparking heap as it took the gunning clone's life with it. Although the blast was fairly minimal, a little amplification from the Force caused the other troopers to fall flat on their backs. With precise shots from Thrix and myself, we relieved them of the need to get up again.

I shut off my lightsaber and grinned down fondly at it's hilt. "Skrag, I've missed fighting this thing."

Thrix joined me at my side and exchanged the depleted power packs in his blasters for some fresh ones from his utility belt. "Got any more tricks like that?"

"Plenty," I replied as we continued down the corridor at a cautious sprint.

It took us another twenty minutes and a few minor scuffles to reach the "execution block". The place was more grim than I could have possible imagined. Not visually, of course. The walls were the same dull grey durasteel like the rest of the detention areas on board this star destroyer. It was the feeling of it in the Force that caused a shudder to shiver from my shoulders down my spine. It was that same feeling of pain and innocent death that I had been picking up far too often of late. I was instantly reminded of the Jedi Temple: though not in such magnitude. That magnitude was only quelled, however, due to the blinding brilliance of my wife's Force signature that blazed only a few cells down from where I was standing.

Without even pausing to wait for the ARC, I sprinted down to her cell door and thumbed my burning blue blade back on and made quick work of melting away the lock. A mighty Force shove upwards was enough to send the door shooting back up on its gears with a nasty sounding crunch.

I took one step inside and had to quickly shut off the blade as my wife bounded into my arms and enveloped me in a tight, hot hug. I pulled her in closer towards me and buried my face into the side of her neck, ecstatically relieved to see her unharmed.

We parted a second later and she looked up at me with a brilliant, gleeful smile. "Was this Corellian charm or blind luck?"

I returned her smile. "A bit of both." As if on cue, Thrix stepped into the cell with his back towards us, blaster triggering off the occasional shot at some unseen enemy.

Keisha blinked. "Thrix?"

The ARC stopped firing long enough to toss a salute at her. "The same. Good to see you again, Master Farlander."

She shook her head to try and rid herself of the initial shock. "Good to see you too. It's nice to know that we still have some allies left."

I nodded and removed her lightsaber hilts from my belt and I handed them over to her. "Indeed. And he's coming with us now. All we need to do is find and free the _Flame_."

"Easier said than done," she replied as her gaze dropped onto Thrix. "Do you know what happened to Tee-Dee? Is he still on the _Flame_?"

The ARC spoke to her casually as he fired another shot and that was followed a second later by the sound of dropping armour. "The techs couldn't find anything useful in him, so they left him there."

I grinned down at Keisha with an air of smug satisfaction. "Told you no one would be able to get past all of this security programming."

She pulled a face and then made a shooing gesture at me. "We need to get going. Thrix could you -"

I looked over at her curiously as she suddenly stopped talking and the felt my own spirit sink. Her gaze had dropped down to the ARCs gun belt where her apprentice's lightsaber was dangling. I gripped her shoulder and whispered gently into her ear, "I'm sure she's fine, sweetheart. Thrix and I found her lightsaber earlier on."

Keisha glared at me in slight horror. "Do you think that she fought Vader?"

Thrix remained quiet, looking down at the ground in sudden unease, and hence leaving it up to me to reassure not only myself but everyone else too. "We're not sure. But you taught her how to get out of sticky situations like that. I'm sure that she was alright."

The ARC looked like he was about to question my words, but his helmet remained tilted towards the ground as if he was looking into a deep void that he didn't want to step into.

I sighed in exasperation. This was wasting time. "Can we talk about this later? I don't want to be on this floating death trap for any longer than we have to."

My wife nodded bluntly and I felt a pang of guilt spring through me. Of course I was worried about her apprentice too, but right now I had more immediate things to panic about. Number one of those: escape and survival. I squared my shoulders and cautiously edged my way up to the door and Thrix's side. "How far away is the hanger?"

"Two floors below us." The ARC was back into his business mode. "Starboard."

I nodded. "Any easier ways of getting there save another turbo lift shaft?"

I could sense that the ARC was smirking. "Afraid not. There's a private elevator down to the hanger bay on the deck beneath this one. It's small so it should be easy to climb down if we need to."

I turned towards Keisha. "Would you be up for a bit of climbing, sweetheart?"

Her gaze lingered on my back for a second as she replied, "More up to it than you seem to be."

I grinned and then outstretched a hand which she gripped and followed both myself and Thrix out of the cell. Just down to our right were two collapsed bodies of the troopers that the ARC had dropped earlier on, and behind them was a full garrison of fresh and heavily armed clone troopers. I was about to withdraw and ignite my lightsaber when Keisha rested her free hand in a restraining manner upon my arm and simply started to walk towards the enemy squadron, dragging me along with a bewildered Thrix close behind. U almost laughed when she politely edged her was through the crowd and we emerged out the other side, completely unharmed. A moment later, another garrison appeared at the end of the corridor, causing a member of the one behind us to yell, "That's them! Fire at will!"

As the air around us erupted into a laser filled chaos, Thrix lead us out of the execution block and away to safety. He looked at Keisha with an expression that was a mixture of awe and deep admiration. "That's some mind powers you've got, Master Farlander." He looked at me briefly. "Much more impressive than Force flashes."

She beamed a smile at him that was becoming slowly more and more Corellian with each passing day. She ruffled my hair slightly. "I'm surprised you were even able to find me with his lack of telepathy."

Her gaze was just affectionate enough that it took all of the insult out of her words. She had a way of doing that to me. "Sorry to spoil the fun, but we need to keep moving."

"Of course," the ARC replied after smiling at wife through his helmet. He pushed ahead and started to lead us back the way that we had come.

With Keisha now taking on the duty of keeping us hidden – and doing a far better job of it, I had to admit – I was left with little else to do but surrender to my thoughts. This was still far too easy. Where the blazes had Vader gotten to? If the feeling I had gotten from him was right, then he didn't seem to be able to let mere clones guard two Jedi knights – especially two who knew the whereabouts of Master Kenobi. Maybe the Chancellor had called him back to Coruscant. It was clear that the Sith had an unnatural obsession with hunting down his former master – so surely it would be difficult to tear him away from interrogating us?

But he wasn't here, that's for sure. Well, at least he was either not aware of our escape or perhaps he was letting us go.

By the time those thoughts had finished rumbling through my mind, we had arrived at the turbo-lift that Thrix and I had climbed up earlier on. I barely caught the end of the ARCs reply as he finished punching access codes into the terminal next to the lift doors, with little success, "…are still under lock-down. We'll have to climb again."

I sighed in exasperation. "No need to climb." I retrieved my lightsaber from my belt and was about to use it to part the doors when an emerald shaft of energy intersected my proposed line of attack and sliced them open for me. I muttered a quick thanks to Keisha and then continued, "Are those lift cables live?"

The ARC shrugged and leant out the gap between the doors to try and give the cables a more thorough inspection. "I wouldn't expect so, seeing as they have everything locked down."

"Great," I replied before taking a Force-aided leap into the shaft and grabbing the wire before plummeting down to the next two floors below us. I stretched out with the Force and stopped my acceleration and then called my lightsaber into my grip. With a gentle Force push against the back wall behind me, I ignited the blade and struck out at the doors of the floor ahead of me, melting the doors and using the Force for the final time to drag them open. I then released my grip on the cable and vaulted forwards to land on solid ground once more.

Keisha and Thrix copied the manoeuvre and landed beside me nearly a split second later. My wife was frowning as she searched the corridor. "Where's the opposition? It's like Vader _wants_ us to escape."

"Or he has an ambush waiting for us in the hanger," Thrix suggested after raising his blaster pistol and blasting the security cameras around us to molten scrap.

Keisha frowned for a moment. "That's something. We need to disable the tractor beam if we want to get out of here."

Thrix grinned from behind his helmet. "That, I will take care of. You head to the hanger and I will meet you there."

I raised an eyebrow at him and shook my head. Something was wrong, very wrong. "Let one of us come with you. I have a _very_ bad feeling about this."

The ARC swatted the air as he spun around and started to march down the corridor. "Udesiir, I'll be fine. The turbo lift is at the end of the next corridor. Turn right and you'll get there."

I sighed and spread my hands out to my sides. "Alright, alright. Just be careful."

He saluted us quickly and sprinted off down the corridor before turning left. I looked over at Keisha with a scowl upon my face. "He's acting a little weird."

Keisha nodded. "That's an understatement. He almost seemed to be eager to get away from us. Maybe he's had a change of heart?"

My reply came out as a deep and unintentional growl, "If he has, then he will regret it."

"Possibly." My wife gripped my hand and dragged me after the ARC, be we headed right instead of left. Just as the soldier had said, a doorway loomed at the corridors end and beckoned us in an almost inviting manner. I shook my head slightly. There was something wrong, something terribly wrong. That same niggling feeling of appending danger lurked in my stomach like the one that I had been feeling since before Vader and his cronies had captured us. Well in truth, I supposed that it would not go away for several years to come at the current state of the galaxy.

"Keisha," I muttered almost mindlessly. "I have an _incredibly _bad feeling about this."

"I know, Cyar'ika. I know." Keisha seemed to be ignoring me as finally reached the turbo-lift doors. She dropped my hand and one of her lightsaber hilts was in hand and ignited by the time I had come to realise what was happening. "Which is why we're going up."

"Up?" I asked as I blinked in confusion.

She nodded as she stepped back and allowed me to rip the doors open once she had sliced them apart a little bit. "At the top of the shaft is the maintenance entrance. We'll head up there and enter that way."

I raised an eyebrow. "How the blazes did you know that?"

She shrugged slightly. "I extracted the information from a clone a while ago."

I grinned impishly at her. Another reason why I loved her so much, she was very resourceful, even under elusive and troubling circumstances. "Good call. That'll certainly make things easier in the long run."

She returned the smile and then looked down at my gun belt. "Got any ascension gear left?"

I shook my head. "The last turbo-lift shaft claimed all that I had." I shuddered. One of the things that was increasingly becoming a phobia: turbo-lifts. "But why do we need 'gear? We're Jedi!"

Again: a smirk. "True, true. Though my physical skills are rather feeble."

"I beg to differ," I replied, causing her to roll her eyes. "Care for a lift then?"

A cloying smile dropped onto her face as she looped her arms around my neck and gently guided me back to the edge of the doors. "Do you even have to ask?"

I grinned back and muttered, "Hold on tight!"

I took a step backwards and felt the ground give way beneath me. A quick Force shove and a single supportive arm around my wife's waist carried us up and level with the base of the doorway. Keisha elegantly swung herself around so that she was clinging to my back as I gripped the lip of the door above, and then she called one of her lightsabers into her grip. Within moments, the doors had parted with a quick precision of an emerald blade of energy, and she sprang up into the corridor.

I followed suite and found myself in a dimly lit, metal grated, cramped access tunnel that shot off into the gloom as far as the eye could see. Sparks from loose or uncovered wiring illuminated the occasional patch of shadow with a fiery orange brilliance and made me take not that we would have to be careful or else suffer the biggest shock of our lives – literally.

"Makes me nostalgic for the execution block," Keisha muttered sardonically as she ducked her head and started to edge her way down the corridor, arms spread out wide to her sides like an infant child learning to walk, as if it would aid her progress in any way.

"Makes me nostalgic for home," I replied in a more sincere tone as I followed her tentatively, though my sense of pride kept my hands drawn down to my sides and within close range of my lightsaber.

Soon, we reached a small access terminal that opened onto one of the giant girders that stretched across the entire, tremendous width of the stardestroyer's main hanger bay. A quick tap on my wife's shoulder halted her, and another with the Force opened it by just a marginal crack, providing us with a brilliant observation point for whatever was going on below us. I leant down close to the gap, squinting to try and see something that would help us know exactly what we were up against.

I pulled back too late when a series of blaster shots struck the terminal door and melted it to a smouldering slag, right where my face had been.

"Stang!" I yelped as Keisha yanked me backwards and further down the tunnel. We hunkered down into balls with the far back wall pressed against us as the continuous fire started to ping against the metal plated wall in front of us.

Half ducking and half clutching onto me, Keisha shouted above the storm of noise that hung in the air. "Where were you hit? Did it get you in the eyes?"

Although my eyes were streaming with tears from the intense heat of the sudden attack, I shook my head. "No. But my left arm and hand have seen better days."

Upon looking down upon my arm, my wife grimaced. The molten metal of the access terminal had splattered against my flightsuit and burnt all the material away, leaving red raw skin that was beginning to blister from the tips of my fingers to half way up my upper arm. The wound blazed in white hot agony.

Pushing herself fully against me, my wife fumbled futilely around on my utility belt. "Where is your medi-pack?"

My eyes widened suddenly. "I gave it to Thrix…"

The expression on her face when she locked onto my gaze was one of resigned anger. "Now we know whose side he is on."

I knew she was speaking the truth, but somehow I found myself unable to bring myself to believe her words. Thrix had betrayed us? After straying away to "de-activate the tractor beam", he must have reported back to Vader and organised this ambush. And by taking my medi-pack, he knew that we would be unable to heal a wound with merely the Force alone. For a moment I was over-taken by a gut-wrenching anger. I was a Jedi, and I had been out-witted by a mere clone trooper. That must have been the problem with the entire Jedi Order: we had been too trusting of outsiders and the living Force. I couldn't help but wonder if we had trusted our instincts from the very beginning certainly we would have left skragging Vader back on Tatooine and quietened the blossoming Sith oppression before it could even be considered a threat. I know that it would have meant that my wife and I would not have been in this current situation now if we had.

Sighing, I turned my attention back to the dinging blaster bolts in their unrelenting struggle to try and strike us. "Then we'll have to leave it. Plan of action?"

Before she could reply, a deep, regal, rumbling voice called out, "I am impressed with your skills at elusion, Jedi, but your futile attempt at escape is at an end. Surrender now and I may spare your lives."

I was shocked when Keisha started laughing. "This just gets better and better."

I rolled my eyes and then a sudden thought came into my head. "Actually, it does." I indicated her twin lightsabers. "Do those require Force activation?"

She shook her head, her brown eyes reflecting that she had no idea about what I had in mind. "No, they don't."

"Fine, then we'll have to use mine." I retrieved the hilt of my lightsaber from my belt and then crawled rather stiffly over to a piece of wiring. Stretching out with the Force, I followed the trail that it took. It was connected to the lights that flooded the hanger with ambience. Perfect. Unscrewing the recharging port, I extracted two lengths of wiring from inside its casing and with the help of Keisha's blade; I welded them onto the light circuitry. I waved my wife over and then delicately placed my lightsaber hilt into her palms, not wanting to dislodge the botched soldering job. "I'm going to need you to focus really hard. Focus on pouring all of your energy into the blade, but don't ignite it."

"What good with this do?" She asked as I began to crawl back the way that I had come.

"The power from the crystal and focusing lens if you concentrate hard enough should be able to short circuit the lights," I replied as I retrieved three detonators from m utility belt, two thermal and one EMP. Not enough for what I needed them for, but they would have to do. "When you've cut the lights, I need you to follow the path of electricity from that wire to the main power grid. I need you to cut the power, even the reserves. It's a big task, but I believe that you can do it."

Keisha thought for a moment and then shrugged her shoulders. "I can try."

I gave her a stern expression and my voice unconsciously mimicked that of Master Yoda as I replied, "Do or do not. There is no try."

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, alright. I can handle this. Just go."

I saluted at her. "Once you cut out the lights." I paused suddenly and then waggled a finger at her. "I'm going to need your lightsabers."

Without another word, she tossed the hilts over to me and suddenly we were plunged into an even deeper darkness. I thumbed on the two thermal detonators and tossed them into two squads of clones that I could sense were stationed close to the _Flame_ and towards the hanger bays large doors. They erupted into a brilliant flash that filled the air with death defiant screams and clanging, rattling deck plates. I also sensed that the hanger bay's door lock had been blown, shutting off any reinforcements with the last detonator that I had set off. Another advantage to be sure. Below, the Force blew up into a surge of surprise and blazing anger. Good: I had aggravated Vader,

Locating the terminal that had been blasted out earlier, I edged my way onto the large girder. I barely coiled the Force around me and plummeted to the floor far below as a scarlet blade slashed into the girder beneath my feet. I landed in a crouch and used a great portion of my Force reserves in absorbing the shock of the landing that threatened to shatter me into a thousand tiny pieces. Before I could rise up onto my feet the scarlet blade was once again slammed down at me at something that represented terminal velocity, and backwards roll followed by a solid emerald parry of my own barely saved me from being cut in two.

I bounded up onto my feet in time to miss a wild slash that could have rid me of the need for ankles and swung Keisha's green blade up into a high block that immobilised Vader's attempt to cut my head from my shoulders. The Sith's powerful use of Djem So – where the user relied on upper body strength to hammer my defenses – was crippling my one good arm as I dropped into my limited knowledge of Makashi, a one-handed based lightsaber form that's elegant prowess could sweep his power aside.

A short stab to my upper left arm connected with my green blade and I allowed the attack to slip past me so that it went over my shoulder and locked it in an unshakable lock. I glared up into Vader's helmet with a broad smile. "A little stiff, Sith spawn? I thought those new limbs of yours would make you stronger, but you're weak!"

"I am the Chosen One!" Vader growled, his heavy breathing rasping more than usual. "I am more powerful than you could ever imagine!"

I laughed bitterly. "Master Kenobi was right. You are Palpatine's puppet! He's using you! You are nothing more than a pawn in a delusional mans game!"

The Sith's heavily armoured hand was suddenly around my throat and choking the life out of me. "Tell me where he is!"

Vader had not noticed the grenade that was resting loosely in my burnt palm, nor the fact that I was about to trigger it. "Not…in your life time…Skywalker!"

My thumb depressed the activation stud on the EMP grenade and then the device dropped to the floor between our feet. I could sense the horror in the dark man as the device exploded in an electro-static pulse that sent us both sprawling across the hanger deck plates. I landed in an uncontrollable roll that slammed me against the hull of a … twin ion engine interceptor. What the blazes was that kind of craft doing here?

I shook my head and pushed myself up into a wobbly crouch and could still feel the electric discharge coursing over my body. EMP – Electro-magnetic pulse – grenades could short circuit even the most tough circuitry or electrical devices. In this case, Vader's black suit. I saw Vader was stumbling about, his suit arching in brilliant blue lightning and sparks as his systems began to fail. Grinning, I rose to my feet and charged at the Sith Lord. Even malfunctioning, the Dark Lord was able to block a punch that I aimed at his curved helmet. A quick, sharp kick to his shoulder – however – sent him spinning and a rough shoulder tackle dropped him to the floor with a satisfying, plastoid clunk.

I leant down and beamed a smile at the man as he tried to get up onto his feet. I felt a strong urge to finish him off, but seeing him rasping and struggling beneath me made me realise just how pitiful he was. Leaving him alive would be more punishment than I could ever hope to give him.

I spoke softly as I leant down further towards him so that a mere meter separated our faces. "This is the end, Skywalker. I sense the conflict in you. I hope that you make the right choice someday." I reached out and flicked a switch on his chest, shutting off his breathing so that he sagged back down against the ground. "May the Force be with you, Skywalker. You're going to need it."

With a mocking salute, I turned and hobbled away. The engines of the _Flame_ roared to life and filled my ears with a sense of freedom and escape. I reached out with the Force and sensed that Keisha was on board, indicating that she had been able to shut down the tractor beams. We could finally get away from this kriffing death trap!

No sooner than my foot had touched the base of the ramp had it started to retract. I took two steps forward and then felt something hard slam into me from behind. I pitched forward the remainder of the way into the into the ship and as soon as I was on stable ground, I was whirling to grab one of Keisha's remaining functioning lightsabers and to shove it up towards the chin of a helmeted clone trooper.

The clone stumbled backwards and bumped into the raised boarding ramp behind him, fumbling to keep himself upright as the_ Flame_ rose into the air and sped rapidly out of the hanger bay. As the tip of my lightsaber eased closer and closer to his throat, he eased off his helmet and kept his hands raised. "Udesii, Ner'vod. Don't make any rash judgements."

"You have no right call me that, Aruetti!" I hissed, maintaining the blazing anger and pain within my eyes. "You almost got us killed!"

Thrix shook his head calmly. "No, I didn't. I can explain everything.

"When you ran on ahead to go and rescue Master Farlander from her prison cell, I was jumped and taken hostage. They replaced me with another clone so that Vader could lure you into a trap in the hanger. I barely escaped myself." He spread his hands wide. "But you're the Jedi, Darklighter. You tell me if I'm lying or not."

I made a gesture with my blistered hand. I knew that he was telling the truth, but my anger had control of my mouth right then, "How am I supposed to believe you? After all that has happened!" I paused. My common sense was returning. "What if they are tracking you now? We could be walking into an even bigger trap!"

"My armour is still not functioning. They can't track me, for now. We have time to dump it or me into space before they can track it." He removed something from his utility belt, a black, magenta and bronze cylinder to be exact. "I needed to return this to you."

I took a deep breath and felt the Force trying to calm me down and tell me to back away. I thumbed off the blade and snatched the one from his grip. "I'll consider that. My faith in you is still shaken."

The ARC let out a breath that he must have been holding this entire time. "I will try to regain it, Jatne vod."

"You can try," I replied simply yet forcefully as I turned my back to him and headed into the cock-pit.

As I entered, Keisha looked up at me almost dreamily as she lounged back in the navigator's chair. The energy from killing the tractor beams had really been taken out of her. "Did we escape?"

I indicated the forward viewport as the stars around us elongated into blurred lines. The safety of hyperspace. "See for yourself."

She grinned as her eyes fluttered closed again. "I knew we could do it."

Behind me, Thrix spoke up. "If possible, I would like to be dropped off on Mandalore. I need to start embracing my heritage."

I nodded to Tee-Dee. "Log that onto the journey."

Keisha opened one eye and frowned. "Where are we going?"

"Home," I replied, my gaze drifting out to the forward viewport. "To Corellia. Master Kenobi was right. We need to stay hidden." I felt a smile cross my face, "That's the trouble with Palpatine. If he had remained hidden longer, bided his time and planned his rise to power better, then maybe he would have defeated all of the Jedi. But he hasn't, and I plan on making his reign as difficult as possible."

Author's note: And so that's it, TTWP is done. Please keep an eye out for more stories starring Keisha and Kai in the very near future. Thanks for all the reviews and reads.  
I also want to make a dedication: This fanfic is dedicated to all of my friends at Legacy of the Jedi. Thanks for lending me your characters, guys!


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